UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MAY TREAT MORRISON 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON
 
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 QUEEN ANNE 
 AND HER COURT
 
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 QUEEN ANNE 
 
 AND HER COURT 
 
 P. F. WILLIAM RYAN 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 1909
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
 
 495 
 9 
 
 . / 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VOL. I 
 THE LADY ANNE, (#y Str Peter Lely) Photogravure Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 EDWARD HYDE, FIRST EARL OP CLARENDON .... 6 
 
 ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS OF YORK 16 
 
 JAMES SCOTT, DUKE OF MONMOUTH 38 
 
 LADY HENRIETTA WKNTWORTH 40 
 
 PRINCESS ANNE IN EARLY YOUTH 48 
 
 JOHN SHEFFIELD, EARL OF MULGRAVE, AND DUKE OF 
 
 BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 62 
 
 MADAME DE MAINTBNON ....... 70 
 
 LOUISE DE QUEROUAILLE, DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH . . 82 
 
 ft 
 
 LADY ISABKLLE OF YORK 90 
 
 5 
 
 ARABELLA CHURCHILL , . 104 
 
 FRANCES JENNINGS, DUCHESS OF TYRCONNEL . . . 134 
 
 ANNE AS PRINCESS ROYAL . . . . , . . 140 
 
 LAWRENCE HYDE, EARL OF ROCHESTER ..... 158 
 
 DICK TALBOT, DUKE OF TYHCONNEL 166 
 
 SARAH JENNINGS, LADY CHURCHILL (LATER DUCHESS OF 
 
 MARLBOROUGH) . . . . . . . 192 
 
 WILLIAM III 236 
 
 JAMES II. . ... 268 
 O 
 
 CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX .... 290 
 
 ' 
 
 5 QUEEN MARY II - t . . 296 
 
 ANNE AND HER SON, WILLIAM, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER . . 306 
 
 WILLIAM, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER .... 372 
 
 428765
 
 Queen Anne and Her Court 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 of the quaintest stories in mediaeval lore 
 traces in rather wayward allegory that 
 chapter in the lives of James, Duke of York, and 
 Anne Hyde, which closed with the secret of 
 their marriage being unveiled. 
 
 Young Bertram of Roussillon was a ward of 
 the King of France, and high in the favour 
 of His Majesty. Because of his father's death, 
 he was summoned in early boyhood to Court, 
 and soon its distractions effaced the memory of 
 little Giletta, who had been his playfellow. 
 Some years passed, and the news trickled down 
 from the town to the country that the King was 
 stricken with a painful illness which baffled all 
 his physicians. An inspiration flashed upon 
 Giletta, now an orphan. Hastening to Paris, 
 she obtained an audience of the monarch, and 
 so won upon him by her beauty and eloquence 
 that her petition to be made his physician for 
 
 VOL. I B
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 a brief space was granted. Employing a formula 
 left by her learned father, she restored His 
 Majesty to health, and then for her fee she 
 craved the hand of Count Bertram. The Court 
 was aghast. Was its darling to be condemned 
 to the arms of this impudent baggage ? Saint 
 Denis and the whole calendar of saints avert it ! 
 But oaths and orisons were in vain. The King 
 was inflexible ; and with the blessing of the 
 Church, to the chagrin of all the great ladies, 
 Giletta became Countess of Roussillon. 
 
 Her happiness was only the beginning of her 
 sorrows, for the Count left his bride alone in 
 the chateau of Roussillon, while he wandered 
 through Southern Italy disconsolate for his 
 freedom. She had now to reawaken the love 
 that was hers in childhood, before Bertram had 
 been spoilt by Court dames. By much patience 
 and courage, and a little guile in season, the 
 Countess won her lord to his allegiance. With 
 lusty twins to make the galleries of the old 
 chateau ring with mirth, Bertram and Giletta 
 lived happily ever afterwards, which is not often 
 the way of romances that begin after marriage. 
 
 It was after marriage, too, that misfortune 
 elevated Anne Hyde to the dignity of a heroine. 
 Her story, like that of Giletta, ended in a 
 manner true to poetical justice. And if there 
 were no twins, she at least bequeathed to
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 England two little girls, each of whom in turn 
 was crowned its queen. The epic upon which 
 the curtain fell fifty years afterwards, when Queen 
 Anne ceased to breathe, has a fitting prologue 
 in the chain of events associated with the 
 secret marriage of her mother, Anne Hyde, and 
 its ultimate acknowledgment by her husband, 
 the Duke of York. 
 
 The maids-of-honour of the Princess of Orange, 
 sister of Charles II. and of James, Duke of York, 
 had as comrade a young English girl, whose 
 comely person and exuberant spirits distinguished 
 her in a Court remarkable neither for beauty 
 nor gaiety. 
 
 In 1656 the Princess, accompanied by her 
 ladies, went to Paris to visit the Queen-mother, 
 Henrietta, widow of Charles I. At his mother's 
 house the Duke of York met the damsels 
 from the Netherlands, and was consoled to 
 find amongst so sedate a company his vivacious 
 young country-woman. 
 
 The Duke was a tall and soldierly fellow in 
 his twenty-second year. He had fought on land 
 and sea, and, as soldier and sailor, had covered 
 himself with glory. Turenne and Conde, the 
 first judges of military prowess in Europe, had 
 applauded him as one of the bravest warriors of 
 the age. It was, therefore, a Prince who was 
 also something of a hero who invaded the circle
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 of his sister's handmaidens to lay siege to the 
 fairest and brightest of the strangers. A certain 
 glamour, too, springing from the misfortunes of 
 his family, enhanced the attractions of the 
 Prince's personality, glamour all the more en- 
 chanting because the clouds were dispersing, and 
 the omens promised that in the not very distant 
 future the Prince of Wales would come to his 
 own again. 
 
 The imagination of the young maid-of-honour 
 took wings at being singled out from the other 
 ladies for attentions so flattering. To her com- 
 panions, however, this trifling was only a prince's 
 mode of spending his furlough from the wars, 
 and no thought of a wedding-ring crossed their 
 minds to stimulate their jealousy of the English 
 girl. The Queen-mother was too proud to take 
 alarm at her son's preference for a simple 
 attendant ; and as for Anne's mistress, the 
 Princess of Orange, if she noted James's partiality 
 for the society of her maid, it would only be to 
 give her a hint, acid or kindly, according to her 
 mood, of the perils that beset a pretty girl amidst 
 the temptations of a Court. The Queen-mother 
 and the Princess had but one ambition to re- 
 habilitate the fallen fortunes of their family. The 
 realisation of this dream of their lives depended in 
 a great measure upon the brides chosen by Charles 
 and James. The marriage of the Duke of York 
 
 4
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 with a lady devoid of great fortune and separated 
 by a vast gulf from the Royal caste would naturally 
 appear, to keener observers than either of these 
 ladies, the readiest means of piling ruin on ruin, 
 and of making the Stuarts, now objects of pity, 
 the laughing-stock of the Courts of Europe. 
 
 When, the visit of the Princess of Orange 
 having concluded, she took leave of the French 
 capital with her suite, not all the belles of Ver- 
 sailles and of Fontainebleau could efface the im- 
 pression made upon James by the light-hearted 
 coquette from The Hague. While James sighed 
 for Anne, the girl herself was not quite happy 
 amidst the sombre gaieties of the Dutch Court. 
 When her lover was near her she was coy. 
 Before his advances she had retreated with the 
 masterly generalship of an experienced cam- 
 paigner in affairs of the heart. But now that 
 she was safe from the siege pressed so ardently 
 by her Royal lover, she sighed for the reopening 
 of hostilities, and a renewal of those tender am- 
 buscades and daring sorties that enliven the 
 manoeuvres of an impetuous wooer. The armis- 
 tice was, however, a tantalising one for the 
 lovers, and it was only in 1659 that the Prince 
 was able to muster his forces for a final and 
 triumphant assault upon the heart of the maid- 
 of-honour. 
 
 Negotiations for the return of the Royal 
 
 5
 
 Family to England were at this time in the 
 wind. Foremost amongst those who were busy 
 with schemes for the Restoration was Anne's 
 father, Sir Edward Hyde. Engrossed in the 
 affairs of the Prince of Wales, he could spare 
 little time from his duties as Lord Chancellor 
 to the Royal exile to attend to his family, which 
 was residing at Breda, under the protection of 
 the Princess of Orange. 
 
 Leaving his eldest brother and Sir Edward to 
 maintain the interests of the Royal House at 
 this crisis in its history, the Duke of York set 
 out for Holland, there to set the seal upon 
 his devotion to Anne. It was in 1659 that 
 James espoused his sister's maid-of-honour in 
 the romantic old town of Breda. With magical 
 swiftness the whole political horizon changed. 
 The Stuarts were summoned to England, and 
 the Duke of York found himself heir-presumptive 
 to the throne. 
 
 The return of the Royal exiles to England 
 meant also the return of Sir Edward Hyde, still 
 the King's Chancellor, and his family. Anne 
 relinquished her appointment at The Hague, and 
 joined her parents at Worcester House, her 
 father's residence in the Strand. James made 
 no effort to escape from his obligations, notwith- 
 standing this sudden turn of the wheel of 
 fortune. He once again went through the 
 
 6
 
 Photo by Emory Walker, after a painting in the National Portrait Gallery liy fieranl Foest 
 
 EDWARD HYDE. FIRST EARL OF CLARENDON. 
 
 p. 6.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 marriage ceremony with Anne, this time 
 according to the rites of the Church of England, 
 in her father's mansion, overlooking the Thames, 
 plighting his troth in the small hours, while 
 London slept. 
 
 To safeguard Anne's honour the public avowal 
 of this union soon became an imperative duty. 
 James and Charles were devoted to each other. 
 But the King might be pardoned for anathema- 
 tising the ill-luck that obliged him to solve 
 a dynastic problem of extreme difficulty at a 
 season that was singularly inopportune. There 
 was an interview, painful and stormy, when the 
 Duke confessed to His Majesty the nature of 
 his contribution to the glory of the Restoration. 
 But Charles was too indolent to nurse his anger, 
 too cynical for anxiety. Life for him had 
 sweeter uses than wrangling. His wrath passed 
 quickly, and with sunny philosophy his mind 
 was henceforth active with plans for overcoming 
 the obstacles that stood in the way of his 
 brother's happiness. 
 
 Himself the last man in the world to marry a 
 woman of inferior station, Charles, in his action 
 with regard to his brother's mesalliance, showed 
 himself not only a man of the world but a man 
 of character. With a tolerance which affords 
 some clue to his real capacity for estimating the 
 value of men and of principles, he recognised 
 
 7
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 that York had behaved as a gentleman a foolish 
 gentleman, perhaps, but with more of chivalry 
 than of folly. 
 
 In this State emergency the King sent for 
 two of his trusted friends and counsellors. 
 The Marquis of Ormonde and the Earl of 
 Southampton were the envoys whom he com- 
 missioned to communicate to the Chancellor 
 the tidings of this startling alliance between 
 Worcester House and Whitehall. The in- 
 dignant father returned with Ormonde to the 
 King. There was a violent scene in the Royal 
 presence, with all the violence on Sir Edward 
 Hyde's side. He railed against his daughter, 
 begging the King to have her sent to the Tower. 
 Her presumption was unpardonable. Not all 
 the tortures of the executioner could sufficiently 
 chastise her. He disowned and cast her off. 
 She was a traitress and a hussy. Away with 
 her. No sire of ancient Rome could have 
 evinced more of zeal for duty and less of affec- 
 tion for his child. 
 
 Charles laughed politely in his sleeve. The 
 notion of sending his brother's wife to the Tower 
 to be decapitated at leisure was too droll. The 
 headsman was the complement of the priest in 
 bluff King Hal's household ; but Charles, who 
 had a pleasanter way with domestic entangle- 
 ments, simply thanked the Chancellor for his 
 
 8
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 loyalty and then calmly awaited the trend of 
 events for a chance to serve the minister's wilful 
 daughter. 
 
 The drama which divided its scenes between 
 the Court and Worcester House was soon the 
 talk of the town. Anne, by her father's order, 
 was kept a prisoner in her room. Her husband, 
 who maintained his customary stoicism in the 
 midst of all the excitement, regularly visited 
 Worcester House a fact which supported the 
 view that Sir Edward Hyde was not nearly so 
 enraged at the honour thrust upon his family as 
 he would have his Royal master believe. 
 
 While ministers were debating as to the course 
 to be followed, and Charles, with admirable spirit, 
 was advising a frank avowal to the nation, 
 Heaven took the management of the affair into 
 its own hands. The King's young brother, 
 Henry, Duke of Gloucester, a youth devotedly 
 loved by his family, was taken suddenly ill with 
 small-pox and died. Scarcely had he been laid 
 to rest when the Princess of Orange, Anne's old 
 mistress, arrived in London. The Queen-mother 
 hastened to follow her, and the ladies of the 
 Royal Family now assumed the ungracious task 
 of leading the opposition to the recognition of 
 the marriage. The Queen-mother was even 
 more implacable than her daughter. She de- 
 clared that if ever Anne should be brought 
 
 9
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 into Whitehall by one door, she should leave 
 it by another, and never enter it again. 
 
 By way of bridging in some degree the 
 difference of rank dividing the bride and the 
 bridegroom, and as a sort of polite challenge to 
 his mother and sister, Charles raised Hyde to 
 the peerage as Baron Clarendon. His Majesty 
 also spoke before the Court of his belief in the 
 validity of the union, thus, as it were, cutting 
 the bridges behind himself, and so making 
 impossible a dishonourable retreat. 
 
 A villain of the melodramatic type appeared 
 on the scene at this juncture in the person of Sir 
 Charles Berkeley. Sir Charles was captain of 
 the Duke of York's Guard, and one of His Royal 
 Highness's boon companions. With almost 
 incredible audacity, Berkeley confessed to the 
 Duke that he had been the recipient of favours 
 from Anne Hyde. He supported his statement 
 with oaths, and brought forward the Earl of 
 Arran, the younger Henry Jermyn, Killigrew, 
 and Dick Talbot, as witnesses to her disreputable 
 character. The Duke was aghast, as well he 
 might be. He never doubted the sincerity of 
 Berkeley, and in the bitterness of his disappoint- 
 ment he ceased his visits to Worcester House. 
 The parts of the various characters in the drama 
 were now completely inverted. The King, a 
 more subtle judge of men than his brother, 
 
 10
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 was still poor Anne's friend. But the Duke 
 of York, who was hitherto ready to sacrifice 
 everything on the altar of duty while duty 
 followed his inclinations, now thought seriously 
 of repudiating his obligations, and of condemning 
 his unfortunate wife to public shame. 
 
 Exquisite mental anguish made these days 
 long and miserable beyond all words for the 
 sorely tried prisoner at Worcester House. Be- 
 sides the ignominy of being repudiated by her 
 husband on the eve of motherhood as an aban- 
 doned Magdalen, there was the weight of her 
 father's wrath to be endured, wrath that now was 
 real enough. Yet still more heartrending to the 
 hapless creature than the affliction of her own 
 deserted plight, or the thunder on her father's 
 brow, was the spectacle of her mother's despair 
 at seeing the protection of the Prince withdrawn 
 from her child at the time of her desperate need. 
 And to fill the cup of the unhappy wife's sorrows, 
 there was the knowledge that her reputation was 
 being torn to tatters by the rakes of the Court and 
 the scandal-mongers of the town. The cry that 
 filled her heart during these wretched days might 
 well be an echo of Gretchen's lament in " Faust " : 
 
 For him my soul doth wildly strain. 
 Ah ! could I but clasp him and so detain, 
 Oh ! could I but kiss him, and with a sigh 
 Upon his kisses dissolve and die. 
 11
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 But for him "at the lattice her eyes grew 
 dim," and neither Prince nor messenger came to 
 alleviate her misery. 
 
 In the midst of this plotting and lying, death 
 again crept into the Royal household. Yester- 
 day it was the young Duke of Gloucester, the 
 best loved of the Royal Family. Now the 
 Princess of Orange was stricken down, and with 
 tragic swiftness she followed her brother to the 
 tomb. The Queen- mother, chastened by the 
 lash of a double affliction, had little heart left for 
 a quarrel, in which all the arrogance was on her 
 side, and all the justice on the other. The King, 
 for his part, was only too eager to see his sister- 
 in-law exculpated, and James was the most 
 miserable of men. 
 
 The effrontery of the ringleader of the plot to 
 ruin a helpless girl did not desert him at finding 
 himself without a sympathiser amongst the 
 members of the Royal House. On his knees 
 before the Duke of York, Berkeley confessed 
 with mock penitence that he had falsely sworn 
 away his wife's honour. Wonderful to relate, 
 James did not run a sword through the courtier's 
 black heart. Never, indeed, was there a con- 
 fession of perjury more welcome. Like a man 
 reprieved at the foot of the gallows, the Duke 
 was too delighted to think of retribution. The 
 King, who hated to use the iron hand, accepted
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the confession of infamy with his usual sang- 
 froid. The captain of the Duke of York's 
 Guard was too gay a rascal to be banished, too 
 amusing for so dull a theatre as the Tower, 
 and so Charles gladly acquiesced in James's 
 clemency. 
 
 Punishment of a kind there was meted out 
 to Berkeley. But it was of the poetical order, 
 and doubtless contributed much in later days to 
 his amusement and to that of his associates. 
 Diverting as they may have found it, however, 
 it was an atonement that nevertheless had its 
 sublime phase, for it was linked with a formal 
 and dramatic vindication of the woman they had 
 so treacherously maligned. 
 
 While the network of intrigue was being 
 slowly unravelled Anne had given birth to a 
 baby boy. In her travail a bishop and a bevy 
 of ladies subjected her to a searching cross- 
 examination concerning the paternity of her 
 child. The noble ladies listened with straining 
 ears while the bishop abjured Anne to confess 
 the whole truth. But the truth they already 
 knew. There was nothing to confess. This 
 star-chamber Court, in which Anne's life and her 
 child's trembled in the balance, was, it seems, 
 ordered by the King who, in doing so, manifested 
 his usual shrewdness. Charles knew that the 
 men who had assailed the mother's reputation 
 
 13
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 would be capable of asserting that her babe was 
 an impostor. He therefore employed what 
 looked like a barbarous inquisition, to secure 
 unimpeachable testimony concerning the birth of 
 a child who would stand in the direct line of 
 succession to the crown. 
 
 The ceremonious act of reparation enjoined 
 upon the conspirators was performed when Anne 
 was convalescent. The lady's father relates that 
 Berkeley was summoned to Worcester House, 
 and he was, it would seem, accompanied by his 
 comrades in infamy. Never, most assuredly, 
 ought conscienceless dare-devils to have crossed 
 a threshold more unwillingly. If one spark of 
 true manhood flickered in their hearts they would 
 have died before facing a daughter of this house. 
 But Restoration gallants did not die of shame. 
 Chivalry was worse than dead it was a laugh- 
 ing-stock. 
 
 What would one not give for a canvas 
 perpetuating that moment, quick with a thousand 
 surging emotions, when these men were ushered 
 into the presence of their victim, with the Duke 
 of York at her side, stern and proud ! History 
 furnishes no parallel to that scene. The allegory 
 of Bertram and Giletta fails us here. But 
 one can picture the Prince glancing along the 
 line of his quondam friends Berkeley, Arran, 
 KiUigrew, Talbot, the captain with front of 
 
 14
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 brass, his lieutenants skulking at their worthy 
 chieftain's heels, hangdog and sullen. Four 
 words spoken by the Duke were the signal for 
 the crowning act of expiation. They were those 
 in which he proclaimed the lady at his side : 
 
 ... The Duchess of York ! " 
 
 As the Prince pronounced his wife's title the 
 penitents fell upon their knees, and she, faint and 
 trembling from physical weakness, gave her 
 hand to be kissed in turn by each of the 
 slanderers. 
 
 It was their absolution and dismissal. Ever 
 afterwards it was the business of Anne's life to 
 forget that she had passed through such a 
 novitiate of suffering. 
 
 With simple dignity the maid-of-honour 
 played her new part of princess as though to 
 the manner born. Her influence over the Duke 
 of York was the strongest that ever bridled his 
 proud and obstinate temperament. The only 
 weakness of his that she was powerless either 
 to correct, or to protect him from, was the 
 disastrous fascination of his mistresses. In 1671 
 the Duchess passed away. 
 
 On the day of Anne Hyde's death the evil 
 star of James of York was in the ascendant. 
 The homely sense, the genial wit, the broad 
 human sympathies that distinguished her char- 
 acter were qualities so dear to Shakespeare's 
 
 15
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 countrymen, that they might have redeemed 
 the follies of a despot and saved his crown. 
 But now it was Giletta's turn to depart, only 
 her flight was for ever, and Bertram's loss beyond 
 repair. 
 
 The little prince, around whose birth had 
 raged the tempest of passion which has been 
 described, was destined to only a few months 
 of life. On February 6, 1664, a girl was born 
 to the York household, who was christened 
 Anne, after her mother. The Royal nursery was 
 not empty when Anne arrived. Mary was 
 already there, a bright little creature a couple of 
 years old. Later, a boy, Edgar, and a girl, 
 Catherine, were born ; but Mary and Anne were 
 the only children of the first Duchess of York 
 who became personages in history. Mary has 
 only a minor interest for us, because, in marry- 
 ing a man of great parts and weaknesses planned 
 on a proportionate scale, her personality was 
 completely overshadowed. Mary is merged in 
 William. 
 
 Not so Anne. With feebler gifts than were 
 her sister's portion, with a husband who would 
 have been more happily placed as a simple 
 trooper than as prince-consort, she, nevertheless, 
 not only helped to create a revolution in the 
 government of England, but by her very 
 irresolution succeeded in perpetuating its con- 
 
 16
 
 From a photo by Emery Walker, after the picture l>y Sir Peter Lely in the 
 National 1'ortrait Gallery. 
 
 ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS OF YORK. 
 
 p. 16.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 sequences. She, in a special manner, was the 
 priestess who presided over the tragedy of which 
 the victims were those bound to her by the 
 nearest and dearest ties. But, strange irony of 
 fate ! Amazing mystery of psychology ! This 
 princess, whom nobody ever dreams of as possess- 
 ing a trait in common with the Isabellas, the 
 Elizabeths, the Catherines of history, this 
 princess, so mediocre, sacrificed every tie to 
 ambition from girlhood onwards, intriguing, 
 deceiving, flattering, betraying an actress to 
 her finger-tips all for the gilded mockery of a 
 leaden crown. 
 
 VOL. I 17
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WHEN, fair and inviting, all obstacles 
 to possession having vanished, the 
 throne at last rose before Anne of York, she 
 began to weigh up her qualifications for the 
 sceptre. The process of introspection was sadly 
 unsatisfactory. Her Highness found herself 
 wanting, and after the immemorial tradition 
 of the greedy office-seeker, she then thought of 
 equipping herself for the exalted place which 
 she had first of all made sure of securing. With 
 this object she took up the study of history. 
 Anne the matron as a student was a spectacle 
 to win the smiles of gods and men, so absurdly 
 unsuited to the part was she by reason of her 
 training and her tastes. It was not the weight 
 of learning that was to bow poor Anne's head, 
 and hurry her to an early grave. A pack of 
 cards was the tome dearest to her ; and if she 
 burnt midnight oil, it was in her enthusiasm 
 for a lively rubber with scholars who had 
 graduated in the same school, and valued more 
 a decisive ace or a knave that stemmed the tide 
 
 18
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 of misfortune! than all the masterpieces of belles 
 lettres. 
 
 Censure, however, must not be meted out to 
 Anne for what was only in a minor degree her 
 fault. The daughters of the Duke of York were 
 the playthings of a hundred adverse influences. 
 They belonged neither to their father nor to 
 the State. Their position was a sort of com- 
 promise between both, in deference to which 
 their intellects were warped and their natural 
 affections twisted and perverted. Secular know- 
 ledge was filtered for them, that it might be 
 purified into harmony with the politics they 
 were permitted to absorb, and religion itself 
 hardly escaped the same disastrous process. 
 Only minds extraordinarily endowed could have 
 shaken off the effects of such upbringing, and 
 performed for themselves in maturer years the 
 repugnant task of revising precepts, analysing 
 doctrines, and reconstructing standards inculcated 
 in childhood. 
 
 The education of Anne was confided to a 
 clergyman named Lake, with Lady Frances 
 Villiers as governess. Lake drilled his pupil 
 with unflagging ardour, until she was on terms 
 of easy familiarity with the Thirty-nine Articles 
 and their main theological buttresses. But alas 
 for Lake's labours ! The conscience, at once 
 right and sensitive, which a religious training 
 
 19
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 is supposed to foster, never gave the least hint 
 of its existence in Anne during that period 
 of her life which supplied a unique moral test 
 at the expense of her unfortunate father. 
 
 The position of Lady Frances Villiers towards 
 the children was more that of mother than of 
 governess. The Villiers family was one of those 
 houses which, spreading its branches far and 
 wide, monopolised, in all directions, posts of 
 influence and profit. The Dukes of Bucking- 
 ham were the heads of the family to which 
 Sir Edward Villiers, the husband of Lady 
 Frances Villiers, belonged. For his loyalty and 
 courage in the Civil War he had received a lease 
 of the manor and Royal house of Richmond. 
 And thither the little Princesses of York were 
 taken when their mother died. 
 
 The mischievous elves who weave black skeins 
 into the web of destiny had rare sport at the 
 old manor house at Richmond, when thither 
 came the young ladies of York. Their com- 
 panions were the seven Villiers children, of whom 
 Edward, Elizabeth, and Anne, were destined 
 to play important parts at the English Court. 
 Here, too, came Sarah Jennings to play, and 
 to lay the foundations of that ascendency over 
 the younger princess which was to harden in 
 time into tyranny that was almost as enduring 
 as the victim's life. Elizabeth Villiers was the 
 
 20
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 great friend and confidante of Mary of York. 
 It was a friendship that begot mournful fruit 
 for Mary. Elizabeth presents a yet more sinister 
 figure in history than that of the masterful 
 Sarah. She became the lover of Mary's husband, 
 the ruler of the ruler of England and the Nether- 
 lands. 
 
 Anne of York was emancipated towards the 
 end of her life from Sarah's thraldom, but her 
 sister was fated never to escape from the 
 ignominy of which the friend of her childhood 
 was the ruthless instrument. Mounting the 
 ladder of shame, she obtained a coronet as 
 Countess of Orkney, while her handsome brother, 
 Edward Villiers, became an ornament of the 
 peerage as Earl of Jersey. The broad avenue 
 of dishonour as a short cut to distinction was 
 not unfamiliar to the race that produced George 
 Villiers, most unscrupulous of gallants, and 
 Barbara Villiers, one of the most notorious, as 
 she was perhaps the loveliest, of the profligates 
 of the Restoration Court. 
 
 Little Edgar of York was, of course, one of 
 the group who shared in the sports and studies 
 and companionship of Richmond Palace. But 
 only for a little time. With the death of Edgar 
 the prospects of his two sisters, Mary and Anne, 
 underwent a complete change, and that vast 
 network of intrigue began which, characterised 
 
 21
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 by every form of duplicity, only ended with the 
 close of the Stuart dynasty. 
 
 The Duke of York, besides being an able 
 captain and a successful administrator, was a 
 man of many accomplishments, acquired by 
 association with the most polished society of 
 Western Europe. He would naturally desire 
 that his daughters should acquire those graces 
 which distinguished the Royal ladies of France 
 and Italy. In the Princess Anne's case there 
 was, however, a serious obstacle to the Duke's 
 ambitions. She was a lively young creature, 
 plump and rosy, and full of animal spirits, but 
 from an early age she had suffered from an 
 affection of the eyes. The ailment, though not 
 a very serious one, baffled the London physicians. 
 The child was next taken to France, and Paris 
 oculists may, it is thought, have been consulted ; 
 but the trouble did not pass. 
 
 Her visit to the French capital is memorable 
 only because Anne, for the first and last time, 
 had an opportunity of meeting Louis XIV., 
 who, when a boy of four, had ascended the 
 throne of France, and who at this time, in the 
 prime of early manhood, was absorbed in 
 the most splendid schemes for the aggrandise- 
 ment of his country. Anne's hostess in Paris 
 would be her aunt, the ill-fated Duchess of 
 Orleans, whose name scandal linked with that
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 of the Count de Guiche, and whose death 
 rumour ascribed to a potion, administered by 
 orders of her husband. Had Louis been any- 
 thing of a seer, his prophetic soul would have 
 shown him the dainty little guest of the Orleans 
 household grown to womanhood, assuming the 
 crown and sceptre of Great Britain, and as one 
 of her first regal acts declaring war against his 
 august self. 
 
 One day a little bird flew into the old manor 
 house at Richmond and there whispered some- 
 thing that set the ears of the Princesses of 
 York tingling and their pulses throbbing with 
 novel doubts and apprehensions : the word that 
 the little bird whispered was " Stepmother." 
 In royal affairs domestic happiness has to give 
 way to political exigencies. The future of the 
 little girls, left So early without a mother, was 
 the least important factor in the train of 
 negotiations now opened with the design of 
 finding a second wife acceptable to a gentleman 
 of easy morals, with all the captiousness of a 
 connoisseur in female charms, and none of a 
 real lover's enthusiasm. 
 
 When the negotiations had been brought to 
 a conclusion, and James had found a bride to 
 his fancy, a wholly charming figure was intro- 
 duced into the drama of the downfall of the 
 Stuarts, and one whose nobility and innocence 
 
 23
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 imparted some touch of true regal dignity and 
 pathos to her husband's misfortunes. 
 
 The King, for reasons of his own, was anxious 
 that James should marry again. His own 
 marriage was so disappointing to the nation 
 that suggestions for a divorce from Catherine of 
 Bragan9a were made to His Majesty. Charles 
 scouted this infamous proposal. But without a 
 male heir to ensure the direct line of succession, 
 the throne was at the mercy of every intriguer 
 with the wit and enterprise to play upon the 
 anxieties of the nation. This, however, was 
 not the only reason why the King desired the 
 marriage of the Duke. According to all the 
 canons of wisdom, James had made a fool of 
 himself once. His union with Anne Hyde was 
 a blunder which had turned out trumps, but 
 the thanks belonged to Providence, whence 
 miracles could not be regularly expected on 
 behalf of one prone to fall before the least 
 tempting shrines of Venus. 
 
 Any lady with the good luck to attract this 
 impressionable widower, and the good sense, or 
 virtue, or cunning, to repel him, might rest 
 assured of the offer of his hand. In self-defence, 
 therefore, the King decreed that York should 
 again enter the holy state, and the Prince, 
 most loyal of subjects, stipulating only that his 
 tastes should be consulted, yielded acquiescence. 
 
 24
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Many princesses were honoured by having 
 their qualifications considered by the Royal 
 match-makers, amongst them two ladies of the 
 ancient house of Este, and Maryanne of Wiir- 
 temberg, whose father was killed in the wars, 
 and who was at the time in a convent in Paris. 
 
 Henry, Earl of Peterborough, was commis- 
 sioned to inspect the eligible damsels and advise 
 the fastidious swain pining for ideal companion- 
 ship. This delicate mission did not pass off 
 without a most farcical faux pas, but, as in 
 every farce, there was one character who did 
 not laugh, and in this instance it was Maryanne 
 of Wiirtemberg. 
 
 Peterborough was in Germany in the course 
 of his delicate pilgrimage, when he received 
 orders to post to Paris, there to interview 
 Maryanne, and if report spoke truly of her 
 beauty and graces, to lay the Prince's heart 
 at her feet. While the noble Earl was on 
 the road the Duke revised his plans, but a 
 messenger, sent to intercept him, missed the 
 ambassador. 
 
 In Paris, Peterborough hastened to the convent 
 where Maryanne was spending her period of 
 mourning. The vicarious suitor was deeply 
 touched by the singular beauty and sweetness 
 of the orphan Princess. With more than diplo- 
 matic suavity he opened his missionand, conquered 
 
 25
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 by her naivete', begged her hand for his Prince. 
 The ingenuous delight of the desolate maid at 
 the prospect of becoming a great English lady 
 completed the conquest of the nobleman, who 
 returned to his hotel to send home a glowing 
 account of his achievement ! But alas for poor 
 Maryanne's hopes of happiness ! One breath of 
 icy realism dispelled them all. Back again went 
 Peterborough to the convent. This time the 
 lovely face did not beam with joy. And the 
 Earl, having executed, as tactfully as might be, 
 a ridiculous right-about-face, retired with a heart 
 nearly as heavy as that which the young Princess 
 bravely tried to mask with a smile, sadder than 
 tears could be. 
 
 Away to Modena with Peterborough, where a 
 girl of fifteen, one of the most charming and 
 most highly educated princesses in Europe, was 
 to be chosen as stepmother to the young ladies 
 of York. There were two Princesses of Este, 
 Mary Beatrice and her Aunt Eleanor. The 
 Duke of York, with the perversity so character- 
 istic of him, chose Mary Beatrice in preference 
 to Eleanor, a woman of thirty, who, with her 
 superior knowledge of the world, would have 
 been better fitted to act as guardian to the 
 Duke's daughters and counsellor to their father, 
 if she could not be his keeper in the path of 
 matrimonial rectitude. But James would have 
 
 26
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 a mere slip of a girl for a bride, or none at all. 
 Mary Beatrice's ambition was not, however, for 
 worldly honours, but for the austere quietude 
 of a convent cell. It required a great deal of 
 persuasion to induce her to accept the English 
 Prince ; and the marriage having been celebrated 
 by proxy, the Earl of Peterborough set out for 
 England with the child- duchess. 
 
 The bride was a protegee of Louis XIV., and 
 on reaching Paris she was laden with magnificent 
 gifts by the French king. She had need of 
 such encouragement, for before she resumed her 
 journey to the coast she heard of the fierce 
 hostility which, on account of her faith, had 
 been aroused against her in England. 
 
 The beautiful young Italian's gaiety deserted 
 her in these days, as well it might. More like a 
 State captive than a bride, she embarked for 
 England. At Dover she was met by her bride- 
 groom. He was no longer the debonnaire youth 
 who had played havoc with the hearts of the 
 Dutch maids-of-honour, but a stern and serious 
 man of forty, whose countenance bore the un- 
 attractive impress left by years of political 
 anxiety and free living. With limbs that almost 
 failed her, she tottered to the arms of her lord. 
 Her heart sank low at that first embrace ; and 
 could the impulse of her bursting heart have 
 freed her from her bonds, and obliterated the 
 
 27
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 funereal pageantry of recent days, how gratefully 
 would she have awakened in her home at 
 Modena, a happy, irresponsible girl once more, 
 with ambition soaring no higher than a stall in 
 the choir of a neighbouring convent ! But now, 
 alas ! there was no going back. Italy, cloudless 
 and fair, was far away, and England, cold and 
 grey and in all things uncertain, was beneath 
 her feet. 
 
 The bridal procession made its way from the 
 coast to Gravesend, and thence up the Thames, 
 with mediaeval pomp, to Whitehall. From the 
 State barge the Duke handed to the King his 
 bride, who now, with childish grace, made her 
 entry into English Court life another Imogen, 
 blindfold and innocent, garlanded for lifelong 
 martyrdom.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 T ORD BELLGUARD in " Sir Courtly 
 *- Nice," a popular comedy of the later 
 Stuart epoch, by John Crowne, discussing love 
 and women with his sister Leonara, clinches the 
 debate with the couplet : 
 
 Women, like china, should be kept with care, 
 One flaw debases her to common ware. 
 
 The wisdom thus epitomised by his lordship 
 and inculcated by the universal licence of the 
 day, often found its most fervent disciples in 
 fathers, husbands, and brothers, who, though 
 not patterns of morality themselves, were zealous 
 in offering up their kinswomen on the altar of 
 virtue. Amongst experienced rakes the Duke 
 of York should be awarded a place. But less 
 painfully solicitous than many of his class for the 
 honour of his daughters, they were not always 
 treasured like the daintiest porcelain. It is not sur- 
 prising, therefore, if in their maturity the vulgar 
 qualities of common ware were occasionally more 
 conspicuous than the graces becoming the purple. 
 
 29
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The King, to whom amusement was the 
 supreme care of State, ordered in 1674 the 
 production of a masque ; and braving it gaily 
 as leading actresses in a drama consecrated to 
 the cult of Venus, we find the two young 
 ladies of York. In later years James of York 
 was to make an earnest bid for saintship. But 
 as yet he was far indeed from establishing his 
 title to the halo of the blessed ! And so we find 
 him permitting his two little girls to encounter 
 the perils of the Court festivities to which we are 
 now to be introduced. Yet another treasure of 
 the York household, porcelain, in truth, of the 
 rarest excellence and beauty, was presented to 
 the Court on this occasion. This gem, amongst 
 a company of matchless rogues, was Mary of 
 Modena ; but the advantage was hers that, new 
 to the country and language, she could only 
 dimly comprehend the drift of the poetry which, 
 by the distinguished profligates around her, was 
 followed with keen delight. 
 
 The masque was a regular form of entertain- 
 ment during the earlier Stuart epoch, not 
 only at Court, but at the houses of the great 
 nobles. The performances were at times marked 
 by little of the decorum one would associate 
 with cultivated society, even in the seventeenth 
 century, both ladies and gentlemen seeking a 
 remedy for stage-fright and the necessary fuel 
 
 30
 
 for enthusiasm in the wine-cup. What may 
 have been a happy handmaiden of art when 
 the evening was beginning, provoked, as the 
 hours wore on, scenes at which the sober and 
 stern might feel disgust, if any sober and stern 
 there were. The art of the masque decayed 
 amidst the political storms that led up to the 
 stern discipline of the Civil War ; and under 
 the lugubrious rule of the saints it withered and 
 died for ever. 
 
 Charles II. would revive the art, and the 
 dramatist chosen for this new restoration was 
 John Crowne. Dryden, as Poet Laureate, might 
 have expected the honour of the commission ; 
 but Wilmott, Earl of Rochester, took the oppor- 
 tunity of paying off a grudge against the more 
 eminent man by diverting the honour to Crowne, 
 who may well have received with misgivings this 
 mark of noble consideration. Dryden accepted 
 the slight with complacency. If he was to be 
 snubbed, there was balm in the selection of his 
 amiable friend Crowne, whose talents were 
 agreeably buoyant when weighed in the balance 
 against his own estimate of himself. 
 
 An element of playful malice may also have 
 entered into Dryden's spirit of resignation. 
 Court society was distasteful to Crowne, who 
 was rather retiring than self-seeking, and whose 
 sensitive nature must have paid for the boisterous 
 
 31
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 patronage of Wilmott with moments of acute 
 distress. Still more embarrassing to the dramatist 
 than the condescension of his patron was the 
 haste in which the composition was required, 
 only a month being available for its execution. 
 Failure would have made him a target for the 
 lampoons of envious fellow-craftsmen and the 
 wits of the town, a prospect that was but a poor 
 spur to inspiration. The Muses, however, smiled 
 on Crowne. When the month had passed, and 
 the last finishing touch had been given it, the 
 masque betrayed no hint of strain, none of mid- 
 night oil. A masterpiece it was not ; but it 
 reflected, indeed, something of the serene humour 
 and easy grace of the Pagan classic which 
 had inspired it. 
 
 Crowne's complete success, under conditions 
 so unpropitious, can hardly have been anticipated 
 by Dryden, who was wont to applaud his friend's 
 efforts with gusto only when the public turned 
 upon him the cold shoulder. 
 
 Revenge was, however, around the corner, in 
 waiting to appease the wound inflicted upon 
 the vanity of the Poet Laureate by the double- 
 edged sword of Wilmott 's enmity and Crowne's 
 triumph. 
 
 Rochester in a little while quarrelled with 
 his protege, whom he dubbed " Starchy John," 
 in allusion to the spinster-like primness of his
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 attire. The nickname might pass for a joke, and 
 was relished as such by those who were amused 
 by the unchangeable spirit of reverence with 
 which John adjusted his cravat as he had ever 
 and always adjusted it. But the noble rake 
 followed this hit up with an effort to set the 
 town laughing at a metaphor in which the 
 poet had offended his sensitive ear by allowing 
 " sportive waves " to smile upon the sun. 
 Rochester launched into rhyme with the sneer : 
 
 Waves smiling on the sun! I'm sure that's new, 
 And 'twas well thought on, give the devil his due. 
 
 The devil did, in all truth, have his due in 
 the masque. The subject was in the worst 
 possible taste. It was Ovid's fable of Jupiter's 
 love for Calisto, the daughter of Lycaon, king 
 of Arcadia. Jupiter, to accomplish his wishes, 
 assumed the form of Diana, of whom Calisto 
 was a favourite attendant. The sequel to the 
 god's adventures was the birth of a child, Arcos, 
 whom the mother hid in the woods. Juno, 
 furious with jealousy on discovering the secret, 
 changed the victim of her husband's imposture 
 into a bear, to which Jupiter retorted in god-like 
 fashion by making the bear a constellation. 
 
 To shock Whitehall was impossible. To 
 amuse it was imperative. In deference therefore 
 to the Gallic zest for entertainment which 
 
 VOL. I 33 D
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 possessed the Court, rather than from regard 
 for the extinct proprieties, Ovid was modified 
 for the masque. Crowne introduced Mercury, 
 whom he made to fall in love with one of 
 Diana's attendants, Psecas, an envious nymph 
 who assists Juno to be avenged. The part of 
 Nyphe, friend to Calisto, was created to provide 
 a place for the Princess Anne, while that of 
 Arcos, which, however amusing to the Merrie 
 Monarch, would have been an occasion of some 
 embarrassment to her more precocious sister, was 
 eliminated. 
 
 Mrs. Betterton, the great Lady Macbeth of 
 her time, was teacher of elocution to the Royal 
 children. Both girls would probably have done 
 better at Drury Lane than as Queens-regnant. 
 Anne, especially, had qualities which every great 
 actress must possess, of which the most charming 
 was a voice of singular purity and sweetness. 
 The throne was in some degree the reward of 
 her signal ability to play a part too often an 
 ignoble one. It was therefore with a certain 
 cynical appropriateness that, when she had reached 
 the summit of her ambition, she settled a pension 
 on the estimable lady who had been of old her 
 theatrical professor. 
 
 The caste of the masque has for the reader 
 of to-day all the charm of an old ball-programme, 
 which, faintly fragrant with lavender, is dis- 
 
 34
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 covered by some grandson in an antique cabinet, 
 the sanctuary of the secrets of a past generation 
 the generation when his gran'dame was a 
 dainty maid. That programme, yellowed with 
 age, faintly outlines a tale already told in real 
 life, the tale of many a family. There are the 
 initials of the grandsire, and there, and there, 
 showing the dances that rewarded his eager suit. 
 It was perhaps in the first stately minuet he 
 lost his heart. It was perhaps while threading 
 the last he whispered to his partner of his loss, 
 and while her hand trembled in his he likewise 
 lost his head with delight, and spoiled the figure. 
 Of course, grandfather was the prize amongst 
 the beaux, and his partner the belle of the 
 evening. That was a pious tradition of the 
 house. But other ladies, too, were belles that 
 evening, and amongst the beaux there were other 
 prizes. And other hearts were given away in 
 the mazes of the minuet. Here are initials that 
 tell of a homely, happy story births, deaths, 
 and marriages, all in honourable routine. But 
 there are others, for one who knows, that re- 
 call some gay Lothario, gay no more, and the 
 gentle hearts he broke, as often told by the 
 fireside of a winter's evening. And studying 
 that relic of the past, the antique cabinet 
 fades away, and the whole radiant company 
 of the olden ballroom glide upon the scene to 
 
 35
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 charm the imagination that now can trace upon 
 every brow the handwriting of Destiny Destiny 
 long since accomplished. 
 
 Mild is the romance of our mildewed pro- 
 gramme when compared with, that enshrined in 
 the caste of the Royal masque, in which the 
 two little ladies who were to be Queens of 
 England won the smiles of the Court. They 
 had amongst their companions nymphs drawn 
 from the fairest daughters of the nobility, and 
 a brave array of gentlemen to join the nymphs 
 in their dances. But on the programme with 
 which King, and York, and courtiers toyed that 
 evening, the leading characters were : 
 
 Calisto, loved by Jupiter . Her Highness the Lady Mary. 
 
 Nyphe, a nymph . . Her Highness the Lady Anne. 
 
 Jupiter,in love with Calisto Lady Henrietta Wentworth. 
 
 Juno .... The Countess of Sussex. 
 
 Psecas, an envious nymph . The Lady Mary Mordaunt. 
 
 Diana, Goddess of Chastity Margaret Blague. 
 
 Mercury, in love with Psecas Sarah Jennings. 
 
 Eyes brighter than the wearers' diamonds, 
 flaming to the reflection of a thousand lights, 
 sparkled and shone when the curtain rose in 
 the theatre at Whitehall upon " Calisto, or the 
 Chaste Nymph." It was a tournament of 
 beauty, with brilliancy warring on brilliancy, 
 and lustre surpassing itself to dim lustre, for 
 the prize of a smile, or a murmured word of 
 
 36
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 flattery. The Court for that one night was a 
 sensual heaven, dazzling in the glory of its 
 fallen angels, and of those younger beauties, 
 novices as yet in the wiles of coquetry, which 
 were the fatal passport to the Royal favour. 
 
 The men who were making history, and 
 dissipating fortunes, and honour, and happiness, 
 were all there. In the centre of the Royal 
 circle, his swarthy face aglow with delight, was 
 the Prince of the Revels, Charles himself. 
 There, too, was the Queen, her dark, imperious 
 features disciplined in a merciless school to 
 endure every mortification that could lacerate 
 a woman's soul. Close by was the Duke of 
 York, glorying in the beauty of his child-wife, 
 whose lustrous eyes, sparkling with rapture, 
 filled the ladies with resentment, and ravished 
 the hearts of the inflammable young gallants, 
 who hungered for one flashing glance from the 
 smouldering fire in their limpid depths. Here 
 there were ears for but one language, and 
 applause for but one art the language of love, 
 the art of gallantry. 
 
 On every hand there were brave soldiers ; but 
 here they were esteemed, not because of the 
 laurels won in the field, but because of the 
 hearts they had broken, or the hearts they were 
 likely to break. The very atmosphere was 
 intoxicating, as though charged with some 
 
 37
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 voluptuous essence, distilled by Mephistopheles 
 in the mood in which he makes woman irre- 
 sistible and her lover resistless. It was an 
 audience which, against all its scarlet sins, could 
 plead but one redeeming trait. It could not be 
 dull if it would, and every sally evoked its 
 meed of silvery laughter from the fairest throats 
 in Europe. 
 
 In the midst of those revels, remote indeed 
 from the shadows of mourning, fate was weaving 
 a shroud for the handsomest young rake of the 
 Court, whose love was to be the undoing of 
 the fair and spirited maid who for that night 
 was the star of Whitehall. 
 
 The peerless gallant, gayest of the gay, was 
 the King's son, the Duke of Monmouth, then 
 only in his twenty-fifth year, who, carrying 
 himself with grace, carelessly superb, made Lady 
 Henrietta Wentworth his slave beyond all hope 
 of redemption. 
 
 Enriched by the gods with every gift that 
 the kindest of fairy princesses could lavish 
 on her favourite wealth, beauty, rank, high 
 courage, the love of devoted friends - - this 
 hapless girl squandered all on one who boasted 
 every charm, and lacked every virtue which 
 could reward a woman's trust. 
 
 Of the seven ladies cast for the masque, Lady 
 Henrietta and Sarah Jennings had to don male
 
 From a photo by Emery Walker, after the picture by William Wissins; in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 JAMES SCOTT, DUKE OP MONMOUTH, K.G. 
 
 p. 38.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 attire. With the abandonment of overflowing 
 spirits, Lady Henrietta threw herself into the 
 part of the jovial god bound on amorous 
 adventure. Reckless was she of her heavenly 
 spouse's jealousy ; and with infectious humour, 
 strangely bold on the lips of a seventeen-year- 
 old damsel, she dared the angry Juno to do her 
 worst, and then chided her for having done it. 
 The blase company laughing around Charles 
 must have been enchanted at such sentiments 
 from one so young and so inexperienced, de- 
 claimed with lively appreciation of their Olympian 
 drollery. But one laugh at least should have 
 rung hollow at those moments, when Jupiter 
 pressed hot in pursuit of the child Calisto. The 
 Duke of York's feelings must have been 
 strangely blunted if he could have heard without 
 some doubts and heart-searchings this Jupiter 
 of seventeen apostrophising Pleasure personified 
 in the alluring person of his child, the sleeping 
 Calisto. 
 
 Never was there so engaging an apostle of 
 unrestrained voluptuousness as this enchanting 
 Jupiter, who achieved a conquest that made her 
 the envy of the Court in winning the heart of 
 the King's son. A word-picture which conjures 
 up a vision of an irresistible Adonis has been 
 handed down by Grammont, who knew Mon- 
 mouth in his all-conquering youth :
 
 " His figure and the extraordinary grace of 
 his person were such that Nature never carved 
 anything so complete. His face was extremely 
 handsome, yet it was a manly face. It was 
 neither inanimate nor effeminate, each feature 
 having its own peculiar beauty and delicacy. 
 He had a wonderful genius for every sort of 
 sport and exercise, an engaging aspect, and an 
 air of grandeur. In a word, he possessed every 
 personal advantage. But in proportion to the 
 greatness of his personal, was the deficiency 
 of his mental accomplishments. He had no 
 opinions but such as he derived from others ; 
 and those who insinuated themselves into his 
 friendship took care to inspire him with none 
 but such as were pernicious. The astonishing 
 beauty of his outward form excited universal 
 admiration. Those who before were looked 
 upon as handsome were now forgotten at 
 Court. All the beautiful and gay of the fair 
 sex were at his devotion. He was particularly 
 loved by the King, but the terror of husbands 
 and lovers." 
 
 Where all the beautiful and gay amongst the 
 fair were at the devotion of this youth, whom 
 Nature, in a riot of generosity, had moulded 
 into a king amongst men, no wonder Henrietta, 
 with all the infallible sapience of her seventeen 
 years, bowed her proud neck to his yoke. 
 
 40
 
 From a mezzotint eiixmvin*; after the painting by Sir Godfrey Kncllcr. 
 LADY HENRIETTA WEXTWORTH.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Neither the prayers of those who loved her, 
 nor their stratagems, could wean her from her 
 infatuation. Monmouth had been married by 
 orders of the King, when he was only a boy 
 of fourteen, to the Countess of Buccleuch, the 
 child-heiress to 10,000 a year. But that he 
 was another woman's husband was no deterrent 
 to the passion of a girl who was in no wise 
 superior to an age which regarded every sin 
 as an added attraction in a woman, and in a 
 man an extra cachet of distinction. 
 
 Her mother took her away from Court, fore- 
 seeing from this influence the wreck of her 
 daughter's life. But the magnetism of Mon- 
 mouth was stronger than the mother, stronger 
 indeed than the child. The Earl of Thanet 
 loved the perverse beauty, and laid his heart 
 at her feet ; but she preferred to squander the 
 treasure of her affection upon the Royal 
 prodigal. Perhaps she thought the day would 
 come when the son of Lucy Walters, who 
 already plumed himself amongst a clique as 
 Prince of Wales, should mount the throne 
 of England. Hugging this illusion to her 
 soul, dreaming Heaven alone knows what vain 
 dreams of a diadem, she gave all she had to 
 give her fortune and her life. Like a prince 
 of melodrama her lover stumbled blindly to the 
 scaffold, and Henrietta Wentworth, baroness 
 
 41
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 in her own right, went down to her grave 
 with a broken heart at the age of twenty-nine. 
 
 The lily in the gallery of sinners was the 
 chaste Diana herself, impersonated by Margaret 
 Blague, a maid-of-honour to the Queen. 
 Margaret was dismayed at being cast for the 
 part. Her unsaintly comrades laughed ; but to 
 this girl, as good as she was lovely, it was no 
 laughing matter to play at being the goddess 
 who "had patronised Endymion and had not 
 repulsed Hypolitus." So desperate was her 
 desire to escape from the unwelcome honour, 
 that she resigned her place in the Queen's 
 suite. As, however, there was some delay in 
 paying to her the usual honorarium given to 
 maids-of-honour on their retirement, the girl 
 tempered the more angelic virtues witJh worldly 
 prudence, and donned the robes and jewels 
 deemed becoming to a Court Diana. Every- 
 body knew that Margaret appeared on the 
 stage unwillingly, and persiflage did not spare 
 so fair a theme for mirth. 
 
 But while banter and repartee sparkled in 
 the green-room, and the audience exchanged 
 meaningful glances at the amazing innuendos 
 of the masque, Margaret was enduring agony. 
 Evelyn's record of that December night affords 
 an intimate glimpse into her emotions. Her 
 poignant distress is the most eloquent evidence 
 
 42
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 left us of the diablerie of these effervescing 
 hours : " During the time the performance was 
 proceeding and her presence was not required, 
 she returned," writes Evelyn, "to the tireing 
 roome, where several ladyes, her companions, 
 were railing with the gallants, trifleingly enough, 
 until they were called to enter. She, under 
 pretence of conning her next part, was retired 
 into a corner, reading a book of devotion, 
 without at all concerning herself or mingling 
 with the company as if she had no further 
 part to act, who was the principal person of 
 the comedy." 
 
 Diana studying her prayer-book in a corner 
 of the crowded green-room, amidst the rattle 
 of free-and-easy converse ! What a masque 
 within the masque ! One bends the knee to 
 Margaret, and one longs to see her sweet lips 
 tremble ever so slightly, curbing a rebel smile ; 
 for the contrast of the saint wrapt in prayer 
 in the midst of those merry reprobates is a 
 morsel of humour so delicate that the saint 
 increases our admiration by the tribute of a 
 humorous twinkle in her seraphic eye. What 
 an edifying spectacle it all was for the ladies 
 Mary and Anne of York ! One can see the 
 children pricking their ears to catch every fine 
 point scored by the "ladyes railing with the 
 gallants," and points perhaps a trifle blunt scored 
 
 43
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 by the gallants " railing " with the " ladyes." 
 The arrows were no doubt deftly shot, so as 
 to wound the virtuous Margaret in their 
 ricochet ; and if the princesses were slow-witted, 
 arch glances shot at the maid-of-honour conning 
 her book of devotion helped their intuition. 
 
 In very leisurely fashion the long drama 
 unfolded its five acts, while the gallants and 
 " ladyes " railed in the tireing - room ; and 
 galleries and gardens witnessed the artful art- 
 lessness of the coquette strayed from the theatre 
 to the tryst. Margaret's spirit was, indeed, 
 foreign to such a rout. " Without compli- 
 menting any creature," says Evelyn, " or trifle- 
 ing with the rest who staid the collation and 
 refreshment that was prepared, away she slips, 
 like a spirit, to Berkeley House and to her 
 little Oratorye, whither I waited on her, and 
 left her on her knees thanking God that she 
 was delivered from the vanity, and with the 
 Saviour againe." 
 
 Godolphin, whose history is so closely inter- 
 woven with this period, afterwards married the 
 nun-like Margaret, and for eight years the 
 " treasure without price " was left him. He 
 proved his constancy to her by never marrying 
 again. Godolphin was as yet low down the 
 ladder of success, but Dunblane, one of the 
 gentlemen who danced with Monmouth in 
 
 44
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the masque, represented in a sense the zenith 
 of politics, for his father was that Earl of Danby, 
 after Duke of Leeds, in whom craft amounted 
 almost to genius. His freedom from common- 
 place scruples was a theme that constantly 
 tempted the scribblers of the day to air their 
 wit at his expense. One lampoon epitomised 
 his deserts in this popular doggerel : 
 
 Of subjects I have ne'er heard tell, 
 Nor could any in this land be, 
 
 That deserve a halter half so well 
 As Thomas, Earl of Danby. 
 
 " You must allow," says Bellguard to Leonara, 
 " that a jewel is not so safe in a crowd as when 
 locked up." The jewels of Bellguard 's metaphor 
 here found their chief security in the multi- 
 plicity of rogues. The Duchess of Cleveland, 
 loveliest of courtesans, most implacable of 
 viragos, was amongst the audience. But her 
 grace had a fair deputy on the stage in the 
 person of the Countess of Sussex, her daughter, 
 who was entrusted with the part of Juno, and 
 who, if heredity afforded a guarantee of ability, 
 ought to have excelled as an exponent of the 
 vindictive goddess's wrath and jealousy. Cleve- 
 land's rival, the volatile Louise de Querouaille, 
 Duchess of Portsmouth, unofficial Secretary of 
 State for Foreign Affairs to Charles, was perhaps 
 
 45
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 a subject for commiseration, because none of 
 her progeny figured as nymph or god or goddess. 
 But the evening had its compensations likewise 
 for her. She had the gratification of seeing 
 there her sister, the Countess of Pembroke, a 
 blushing bride, who, pirouetting in the train 
 of Calisto as an attendant nymph, modestly 
 personified Louise's respect for the holy state 
 of matrimony, and a substantial jointure 1 
 
 Long after Margaret had fled to her " Ora- 
 torye," long after she had left her " Oratorye " 
 for her couch, the salons of Whitehall rang 
 with the laughter of the giddy throng devotedly 
 bent on prolonging every exquisite moment of 
 pleasure. With eyes heavy with weariness, and 
 hearts perhaps a little sad for the delirium too 
 quickly passed, the ladies of York took leave 
 of the Merrie Monarch, the weary beauties, 
 and the yawning gallants. And then at last 
 the lights burnt low. The laughter grew in- 
 frequent and rang hollow, until at length the 
 chilly sense of loneliness crept upon the palace, 
 and the only signs of life remaining were the 
 sentinels keeping their sleepless vigil. 
 
 46
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 r~TlO his pillow, on the night of the masque, 
 -*T a gentleman of the Court carried, one 
 would fain believe, the vision of a sweet nymph, 
 a mere child of nine, with silvery voice and 
 all the charm of perfect innocence, where 
 innocence was the supreme jest and the 
 supreme jewel. The gentleman was the Earl 
 of Mulgrave, Knight of the Garter, and the 
 nymph was Anne of York. 
 
 Some half-dozen years rolled by, chequered 
 by many and sharp vicissitudes for the York 
 family. Anne was now a comely girl of 
 sixteen, endowed with the soft, winsome 
 charm of irresponsible and high-spirited girl- 
 hood. The gift of all others that captivates 
 most unfailingly was hers a sweet voice 
 modulated with unaffected grace. When Anne 
 spoke, the syllables were music welling forth 
 melodiously from a magic flute, every vibration 
 expressive of a heart more fearless than kind, 
 the heart of a winning young barbarian. Her 
 cheeks had that charm of colour that seldom 
 
 47
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 warms perfection of feature, while her hands and 
 feet, strictly beautiful in every tapering line, in 
 every gracious curve, were classics of symmetry. 
 To this untamed nymph, with the voice that 
 awakened strange chords of perilous sympathy 
 in the too responsive bosoms of the cavaliers 
 of the Court, there came at this time the first 
 dream of love. This page of Anne's story 
 embellished with roses tells but a broken tale. 
 Yet a fragment of Palissy is often more precious 
 than cold perfection void of soul or sentiment. 
 This episode in the girlhood of the young 
 princess, with the glowing ^checks ruddy and 
 alluring with the quick blood of youth, and 
 the hands and feet of a masterpiece of Praxiteles, 
 is an idyll the only one in a career that never 
 again strayed from the prose of life into the 
 enchanted realms of poetry. Her lover was 
 young and handsome, blithe and debonnaire, 
 with much of the physical charm of a Monmouth, 
 but immeasurably his superior in grace of 
 mind. Her cavalier, too, was bold in love and 
 bold in war as ever was knight of Arthurian 
 legend ; and if his puissance fell short of the 
 grandeur of Sir Galahad's boast : 
 
 But all my heart is drawn above 
 
 My knees are bow^d in crypt and shrine ; 
 
 I never felt the kiss of love 
 Nor maiden's hand in mine, 
 48
 
 From a mezzotint cnyravinjr liy R. C'dnpfr. after the jinlntliiir 1>y W. \Vi 
 P1UXCES8 AXNB IN EARLY YOUTH.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Anne at least knew nothing, or ought to have 
 known nothing, of the Earl of Mulgrave's wilder 
 and less poetical transports in the domain of 
 romance. But the maid, if not the knight, 
 was happily worthy of Arthurian ideals, 
 courageous as a lioness with her ladies, but 
 timid and gentle as a fawn with the gallant 
 whose shadow she could have kissed. If sixteen 
 enamours at all it is flawless and sinless, because 
 it is all flaws and sins little flaws that are only 
 foibles, and innocent little sins that every 
 Elizabeth, and Teresa, and Agnes, of them all 
 might have sinned. 
 
 Who can tell when a romance begins where 
 the man knows the maid from the cradle, and he 
 is amongst the first heroes of her childish imagina- 
 tion ? The Duke of York had a warm regard 
 for Mulgrave, who repaid the Prince's affection 
 with loyalty as sincere as he was capable of, and 
 one suspects that Anne, on entering her teens, 
 began to have tender visions of the future with 
 the young Earl as their inspiration. How could 
 the little Princess help it, when none of the friends 
 of the York household were so handsome, none 
 so witty, none more fearless than he ! And 
 Mulgrave, arch-rogue where gentle hearts were 
 the prize, if he read her secret, took care to fan 
 the flame. If no one can fix a day when these 
 two read in each other's eyes the attraction of 
 
 VOL. I 49 E
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 heart for heart, there is also some uncertainty as 
 to whether the spring of 1679-80, or a later period, 
 witnessed the unhappy climax of the courtship. 
 
 The romance, whenever begun, ran the brief 
 course of its serious phase at Windsor. There, 
 amidst the seductive glades in the spring time, 
 Anne and Mulgrave met, and in the mysterious 
 silences of green and woodland, Nature wove her 
 sweetest spell, and upon each there fell the 
 world-old enchantment. It was the time when 
 Windsor was a Castle of Anacreon. The terrace, 
 with its festive groups, " resembled a picture 
 by Watteau ; the courts resounded with laughter, 
 and the velvet sod of the Home Park was as 
 often pressed by the foot of frolic beauty as 
 by that of the tripping deer." 
 
 Mulgrave was a man of about thirty, the 
 age perhaps most dangerous to sixteen. Thirty 
 is young as the youngest, and withal old as 
 Methuselah to a girl midway in her teens. She 
 can look up to him without feeling oppressed 
 with reverence. If in docile mood, she can 
 approve his wisdom ; if it be her hour of 
 petulance, or her day of vixenish crotchets, 
 she can quarrel with him, for his airs have not 
 the sanction of silver locks. His wisdom, in 
 truth, is not wisdom at all, only the conceit 
 of a youngster who has climbed in red-hot haste, 
 just a little in advance of herself, the tree of the 
 
 50
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 knowledge of good and evil. She already feels 
 the first boughs swaying beneath her own weight, 
 and with pulses bounding to this novel exhilara- 
 tion she dares to challenge her mentor. 
 
 Mulgrave was a favourite officer of the King's 
 household. He had qualities which made him 
 the beau ideal of a Restoration courtier. Courts 
 and salons and battlefields had been his Univer- 
 sity, but he was also something of a scholar 
 and litterateur qualities which, though not 
 superlative credentials in Court and Society, 
 were nevertheless invaluable auxiliaries where 
 wit and grace and tact were the passports from 
 obscurity to fortune. 
 
 Mulgrave had donned the toga at an early age 
 When he was only sixteen he had borne arms 
 against the Dutch. Having proved his mettle, 
 the handsome and accomplished youth, conscious 
 of his talents, felt it would be a crime against 
 Providence to lose his head before he had begun 
 to make practical use of its manifold resources. 
 His thirst for glory temporarily sated, he had 
 forged his long sword into a dainty Court rapier, 
 and carved a road for himself to the favour 
 of Charles and Royal preferment. 
 
 Mulgrave's brief courtship of Anne was not 
 an airy castle reared for the dreaming of a 
 spring-tide dream. It was a century when a 
 woman was old at twenty, and at sixteen she 
 
 51
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 was ready to be won, or conquered, or captured. 
 A girl, therefore, was little more than a child 
 when the freedom associated with childhood 
 was restrained. To pat the lass's head with a 
 patronising hand conveyed a desire to possess 
 the maiden's own. Beg of her a ringlet ! and 
 her pout of disdain was but a pretty affectation, 
 while she wondered if her head were coveted 
 as well as the tresses. We have seen how, 
 when Anne was only nine, she was launched 
 into the vortex of gay licentiousness. The 
 night on which she had played Nyphe her eyes 
 must have been opened dimly to the secrets 
 which, guarded only by a gossamer veil, are the 
 death of childhood's innocence. The sighing, 
 the languishing eyes, the honeyed words, the 
 laughter eloquent of the arriere-pensee ', the 
 women's comments on the women, the flashes 
 from envious eyes, were all, no doubt, conned 
 over at leisure by the young girl, pieced together, 
 disordered and readjusted, until the instinct of 
 womanhood found the key that read some 
 glimmer of intelligence into it all. 
 
 Child though Nyphe was, she must have 
 heard her companions in the masque talk of 
 Monmouth's marriage when he was but a boy 
 to a little girl of about his own age. Monmouth's 
 was no isolated instance of such boy-and-girl 
 unions. Had Anne any doubts as to their 
 
 52
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 propriety ? Then there was her father, wedded 
 to one who might almost be his granddaughter, 
 though he was still a young man. Was she 
 weak in arithmetic ? Perhaps ; but she could 
 easily manipulate the simple figures which proved 
 her more nearly a match for Mulgrave than 
 Mary of Modena was for His Highness her 
 father. 
 
 Finding herself at Windsor, where every 
 avenue was the scene of some courtier's love 
 suit, Anne would have been more or less than 
 a girl did she not roam the glorious pleasaunces 
 half-afraid, and half-praying, that in every copse 
 there tarried the lord who would be her partner 
 in this great game, of which the King was 
 captain-general. 
 
 Mulgrave, looking out from the castle, spied 
 the damsel in her quest, and registered the vows 
 for which in a little while he was to do penance. 
 The Earl, who was a devotee of the Muse, 
 especially the amorous Muse, might have quoted 
 to himself amidst the conflagration of his latest 
 passion the poem, three centuries old, of " The 
 King's Quair," in which a prisoner at Windsor, 
 an ancestor of Anne, sang of his love for a 
 heroine whose blood coursed in the young 
 princess's veins. The prisoner was Prince James 
 of Scotland, and his divinity, " the fairest and 
 freshest younge flower" that ere he saw. was 
 
 53
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Jane of Beaufort, granddaughter to John of 
 Gaunt. The exquisite naivetd of " The King's 
 Quair " leaves behind a fragrance very different 
 from that of Mulgrave's sophisticated lyre. The 
 kindly fortune which had smiled on the captive 
 prince's suit held aloof from the gallant Earl 
 who laid siege to Jane of Beaufort's successor in 
 the realms of romance, with the complacency 
 of a coxcomb, ignorant of the meaning of defeat 
 save in the affairs of other mortals. 
 
 Greatly daring was Anne to enter such lists. 
 Feeble was the resistance she could make to so 
 formidable a lover. The young Earl was one of 
 the handsomest men of his day. His features 
 were delicately moulded, his face of a regular 
 oval, while his expression combined the most 
 extraordinary sweetness with a lively and 
 penetrating look, indicative in some degree of 
 his clear insight into affairs, and of the well- 
 balanced judgment of which he was afterwards 
 to give such unmistakable proofs. A more 
 useful ally to success in love than his shrewd 
 judgment was his singularly impressionable and 
 sympathetic temperament. " I was angry with 
 you a moment ago," he would say to his servant. 
 " 1 did not mean half what I said." A man 
 capable of that confession had mastered the art 
 of cajoling men into loyalty and women into 
 love. He laughed as readily as a school-girl, 
 
 54
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 and as quickly his mood changed from exu- 
 berant gaiety to pensive melancholy. At a 
 tale of distress the tears were not far from his 
 eyes, and his temper was roused as easily as 
 his sympathies. 
 
 But no man dare trifle with the gentle Earl. 
 Without a trace of braggadocia, he was ever 
 ready to encounter death on the duelling ground, 
 or relieve the monotony of a sybarite's days with 
 a term of service at the wars. While the 
 lighter qualities of his nature were more French, 
 or perhaps Irish, than English, he was on his 
 sterner side almost the typical Briton idealised 
 n song and story a man of strong passions, 
 without a spark of affinity to the spiritual, 
 practical in business, sentimental when con- 
 venient, ready to fight if action were demanded, 
 and quick to forgive, especially when his were 
 the winning colours. 
 
 When once Mulgrave had set his heart on 
 marrying the princess, the courtship, we may 
 well believe, galloped to a crisis. Swiftly those 
 golden days fled past ; but while they lasted 
 there was dallying in the glade and sauntering 
 on the sward. No warder ever scanned the 
 landscape more keenly than did Anne from the 
 castle casements when the King and the gentle- 
 men went a-hunting, and her gallant was away. 
 It was a comedy as well as a romance. The 
 
 55
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 tiny, silken-sandled feet of the princess often 
 danced impatiently over the sloping pastures, 
 through the aisles of the forest, up the terraces 
 and down the terraces, tingling to meet him and 
 half planning flight from him. 
 
 Sighing to be courted, she the while played 
 the part of transparent innocence to her father 
 and step-mother, and the sophisticated ladies-of- 
 honour, to whom the nervous poise of her head, 
 the unusual fall of a ringlet, the novel challenge 
 of a ribbon, told all as plainly as though the 
 idyll were written in black and white amongst 
 the Castle chronicles. 
 
 These same ladies must have been rather 
 provoking personages to the girl in love, with 
 their music and their embroideries, and their 
 stupid games. A plague even on cards ! 
 Hitherto these were her perpetual delight. They 
 were now the proper distraction of aged persons 
 of twenty and upwards, but only penitential 
 exercises to a wiseacre of sixteen who had been 
 initiated into giddier delights. The gossip of the 
 dames, a little while ago so exciting, was now in- 
 expressibly tedious, because she had drawn near 
 to the fountain of their most piquant stories, to 
 the inspiration of their most significant nods and 
 pauses, to the object of their gasps of indignation, 
 and the author of their wide-opened eyes of 
 astonishment his Highness, Manl 
 
 56
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 But one fine day an end came to all the 
 pleasant dalliance in the glade and the sauntering 
 on the sward with her Garter Knight. 
 
 The King spoke one little word, and the 
 castle in the air had vanished ; and Anne, self- 
 appointed maid-of-honour to the Queen of the 
 Fairies, found herself leaden-footed and leaden- 
 hearted, a love-sick princess of a prosaic world. 
 
 Sarah Jennings has been suspected of playing 
 the spy upon the lovers. It has been said 
 that she probably showed to the King a 
 billet-doux passing between her playfellow of 
 the old manor house at Richmond, and Mul- 
 grave. It is likely enough. Sarah was not a 
 maiden to stick at a nice point of honour, if 
 her interests beckoned her along a contrary 
 path. It may well be supposed that zealous 
 Royalists were not wanting to prompt Sarah 
 to treachery, were prompting needed, and to 
 devise schemes for ensuring that the course of 
 true love should not evade its legitimately 
 rugged course. Mulgrave possessed too many 
 of the best gifts of the gods not to be coveted 
 by the women of the Royal circle and envied by 
 the men. Jealous courtiers could not forgive 
 him that he was so pleasing to Charles. Only 
 one woman could absolve him, and she would 
 be the one to whom he made love in this 
 case a girl, and a very young and helpless one. 
 
 57
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Whoever betrayed the lovers, Charles evinced 
 his gratitude by acting with the promptitude of 
 a guardian caught napping in the hour of crisis. 
 With the energy that His Majesty was capable 
 of displaying on those rare occasions when he 
 was aroused to action, he destroyed with a word 
 the pleasant fabric of Mulgrave's too ambitious 
 dreams. 
 
 What passed between Charles and his gentle- 
 man-of-the-bedchamber would be a dialogue for 
 gods and men to feast on. Mulgrave was afraid 
 of nothing living, not even of the King. Charles, 
 on the other hand, had a lively horror of cutting 
 a ridiculous figure. Here was one whose wits 
 were sharper than his own, and whose nerves 
 were steadier. Charles would sacrifice every 
 Stuart save himself rather than be laughed at. 
 How the Royal fingers must have tingled to box 
 the ears of the froward minx who had contrived 
 this tragi-comic tableau ! Not that the pair 
 were without his pitying contempt. All lovers 
 had that. When the interview was over 
 Mulgrave was no longer a gentleman-of-the- 
 bedchamber, and his fate was a warning to the 
 other courtiers that, though Anne was willing 
 to be wooed, she was not to be won by an 
 Englishman. 
 
 Mulgrave's punishment was a heavy one, for 
 he was deprived of all his honours. As a sort 
 
 58
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 of left-handed mark of the King's favour, he 
 was, however, given a command from which 
 could be reaped neither glory nor profit, but 
 which offered some promise that he had not 
 alienated for ever the Royal favour. Tangier 
 was at the time besieged by the Moors, and to 
 Mulgrave was entrusted the task of bringing 
 relief to the town. The expedition was in some 
 quarters thought to be specially adapted for a 
 destination of less precise latitude and longitude. 
 Mulgrave's ship was so unseaworthy, the admiral 
 at Tangier expressed surprise that the voyage 
 had ever been accomplished. Mulgrave himself 
 seems to have shared in the surprise. Amongst 
 his officers was the young Earl of Plymouth, 
 one of Charles's favourite sons ; but, notwith- 
 standing his presence, Mulgrave pointedly re- 
 frained from the usual loyal compliment of 
 drinking the health of His Majesty nightly. He 
 reserved this pleasure for a later occasion, when 
 he trusted that the kindness of the elements 
 would enable him to drink to His Majesty with 
 more sincere devotion than he could possibly 
 feel when exposed to grievous peril on his 
 august sovereign's most rotten ship. That 
 Charles was aware of the condition of the hulk 
 in which the disgraced Earl was sent into exile 
 is, however, most unlikely. The presence of 
 Plymouth forbids the notion. Nor is there the 
 
 59
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 least reason to suppose that Mulgrave held the 
 King to blame for the danger thus thrust 
 upon him. The contempt which he showed for 
 etiquette, by banning the loyal toast, was meant, 
 doubtless, as the straightforward retort for in- 
 juries received of a devil-may-care English earl 
 to a king whom he half-liked and half-despised. 
 
 During the voyage to Tangier Mulgrave's 
 chief distraction was writing poetry, if poetry 
 much of it might be called. But he wrote, 
 we may believe, as he thought, as he spoke, 
 as he lived. To know this lover of Anne in 
 her teens her uncle's boon companion, her 
 father's cynical friend, faithful to a point, her 
 brother-in-law's creditor for timely service, her 
 own staunch friend from her Coronation to the 
 desolate morning when she took leave of earth 
 at Kensington is to know the England of his 
 long, careless, selfish day, and why its destiny 
 took the shape it did. Here is the candid 
 avowal of the lawless law that was the rule of 
 life for men and women of fashion of the sphere 
 in which he loved to shine : 
 
 Our appetites are Nature's laws, and giv'n 
 Under the broad, authentic seal of Heav'n. 
 Let pedants wrangle, and let bigots fight 
 To put restraint on innocent delight ; 
 But Heav'n and Nature's always in the right. 
 They would not draw poor wretched mortals in, 
 Or give desires that shall be doomed to sin.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The philosophy of such a sybarite could 
 extract from disgrace and exile no compensa- 
 tions. His was an intellect in which all third- 
 rate qualities blended harmoniously, and were 
 refined to the highest polish. But at no point 
 did he touch the heroic. He was a soldier, 
 but no general ; a thinker, but his trade was 
 in other men's ideas ; a politician, but no states- 
 man. His morals constituted studious care of 
 his health, and his religion was that of Nature 
 interpreted through his appetites. Within a brief 
 space the Royal anger was appeased, and Mul- 
 grave was back once more in England in the 
 enjoyment of all his old honours. Never again 
 was he condemned to expiate a sin against 
 Royalty. He had taken his last risk in love 
 and war. Henceforth the colours of his supreme 
 devotion were those of the House of Mulgrave. 
 His cool and cynical judgment enabled him 
 not only to hold his ground, but to improve 
 it in the face of the most embarrassing com- 
 plications. 
 
 James II. made him a Privy Councillor and 
 Lord Chamberlain. At the Revolution his 
 sympathies were with James, but never so 
 ardently as with himself. They therefore attached 
 him to the party that suited the convenience 
 of a nobleman who disliked enforced residence 
 abroad. His good fortune threw in his way an 
 
 61
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 opportunity of saving the Spanish Ambassador's 
 life in the midst of the turmoil which attended 
 James's flight. His resourcefulness secured for 
 him the thanks, not only of James, but the 
 gratitude of William. His crowning honour 
 came appropriately from his lady-love of the 
 old Windsor romance. When Anne, a sedate 
 young matron, ascended the Throne, she made 
 her old cavalier Duke of Buckinghamshire ; 
 not that his grace had earned such advance- 
 ment by his tender constancy to the sentiment 
 which had brought him to her feet in her 
 girlhood. 
 
 Far, indeed, from permitting his heart to 
 wither, a sorrowful tribute on the shrine of a 
 hopeless passion, Mulgrave has earned immor- 
 tality amongst the poets as the gayest apologist 
 of Inconstancy. A woman can never perhaps 
 smile with unalloyed pleasure at the memory 
 of a first love rudely blighted. But the wound 
 had cut deep into Anne's heart, if she was 
 not diverted by the Earl's witty and impudent 
 defence of his adventures in the field of 
 gallantry. Perhaps, indeed, she recognised in 
 the lines the merry scorn of one who, in a 
 playful way, could not quite forgive her that 
 she too lived, like himself, to enjoy life, when 
 she ought to have languished and died for love 
 of him ! Perhaps, with a woman's faculty for 
 
 62
 
 From nn engravii 
 
 JOHN SHEFFIELD, EARL OF MULGEAVE, LATER DUKE OF 
 BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 
 
 p. 62.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 divining such secrets, she read in the poem 
 his answer to some beauty's sighs, who feared 
 lest one who had so easily consoled himself 
 for the loss of a princess would lightly cast 
 aside a charmer of simpler station. If the 
 " Glorianna " of the Earl's verses was indeed 
 but another name for Anne, one can imagine 
 how half-amused, half-vexed, wholly sorry at 
 having been cheated of so clever, so tantalising, 
 so audacious a lover, she read these lines : 
 
 I must confess I am untrue 
 
 To Glorianna's eyes, 
 But he that's smiled upon by you 
 
 Must all the world despise. 
 
 In winter fires of little worth 
 
 Excite our dull desire, 
 But when the sun breaks kindly forth 
 
 Those fainter flames expire. 
 
 Then blame not me for slighting now 
 
 What I did once adore, 
 O ! do but this one change allow 
 
 And I can change no more. 
 
 Fixed by your never-failing charms 
 
 Till I with age decay; 
 Till languishing within your arms 
 
 I sigh my soul away. 
 
 Against so airy a traitor it was not possible 
 to cherish anger, and Anne, always his friend, 
 as he was always hers, had the satisfaction of 
 
 63
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 seeing three ladies fill in succession the place 
 on Mulgrave's hearth he had designed for her. 
 One of these was her half-sister, Catherine 
 Darnley, daughter of Catherine Sedley, Countess 
 of Dorchester and James II. Never had a 
 man more excellent wives, according to the 
 last will and testament of this genial epicure. 
 But Anne was spared the mortification of 
 learning how supremely blessed in his choice 
 of partners was one whom she might not bless 
 herself; for Mulgrave lived far into the Georgian 
 period, and when his will was opened the princess 
 of the Windsor idyll was no more. 
 
 64
 
 Dans 1'age ou Ton est aimable 
 
 Rien n'est si beau que d'aimer, 
 Soupirez librement pour un amant fidele, 
 
 Et bravez ceux qui voudraient vous blamer. 
 
 A T the Court of St. James's the ladies sighed 
 -*--^- not less ardently to be loved than at 
 Fontainebleau. Charles was the gayest patron 
 in Europe of the mischievous god. To him 
 there was indeed no other god worthy of Royal 
 incense. It was his frolics which made the 
 Court move to the tripping measure His Majesty 
 fancied. But there was the exception ! The 
 loyal sentiment " Soupirez librement " was in 
 one gentle breast not loyalty at all, but treason 
 to the Crown. To the maid of the Blood 
 Royal was accorded merely the freedom of a 
 novice, who, without any vocation to be a nun, 
 had, as it were, to wait patiently for a passport 
 from the cloister into the gay world whose 
 laughter rang temptingly in her ears, while 
 alluring visions haunted her isolation of girls 
 of her own age being wooed and won by for- 
 bidden Man ! The princes, her kinsmen, might 
 
 VOL. I 65 F
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 sigh for a new mistress with every breath ; and 
 by-and-by, when they had leisure, and events 
 marched agreeably, they would lead her over 
 the Rubicon to some half-unwilling knight flung 
 in her way by the caprice of Fortune. 
 
 Mulgrave, with his facile temperament, his 
 grace, his tact, his worship of pleasure, had he 
 been chosen as the Duke of York's son-in-law, 
 would have been a Stuart of the Stuarts, careless 
 and gay as the King himself. But a voluptuary 
 only he could not be, and while devoting himself 
 to his Royal Glorianna with what constancy 
 was possible to his inflammable heart, he would 
 have fought and laughed his way to princely 
 rank in the magnificent game of politics, whose 
 leader was the god of Versailles, the proudest 
 prince in Europe, Louis Quatorze. 
 
 The treasury of romance is the poorer by a 
 rare jewel that Anne had not the spirit to brave 
 them all and fly with her lover ! Charles would 
 have been angry for a week or a month ; but, 
 too selfish to harrow himself with an emotion 
 so distressing, the lovers would soon have been 
 received back into Royal favour. But Anne 
 was too young to don male attire and ride away 
 to her cavalier, like her ancestress Arabella 
 Stuart, when they had tried to rob her of her 
 Seymour. The fate of Arabella, and visions 
 of a chilly boudoir in the Tower, all for her 
 
 66
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 own pretty self, may well have dissolved Anne's 
 courage in tears ; and many a day, weary with 
 disappointment, rolled by before, having separated 
 her from her too impetuous lover, they gave 
 her in exchange a husband. 
 
 One wonders how much Anne was privileged 
 to know of the comedy which made her Princess 
 George of Denmark, after its scenes had been 
 played out on the broad stage of Western 
 Europe. A comedy it all was, with humour 
 of the most subtle delicacy. This Princess, with 
 the soft, round cheeks, and the luxuriant brown 
 hair, and the gentle, languishing eyes of a village 
 Marguerite, was the despair of kings and princes, 
 bishops and diplomatists. Many a weary 
 minister, when exasperated with intrigues of 
 which she was the subject, must have wished 
 at times that she had indeed braved those who 
 would blame or punish her, and ridden away with 
 her Mulgrave. There would then have been so 
 many knots the less to tie and untie while one's 
 brain whirled and one's ringers ached curses. 
 
 Of the players in the game that had for its 
 prize the selection of a husband for Anne, Louis 
 Quatorze was the one whose position augured 
 victory. Louis had at this time reached the 
 zenith of his career. In war and peace and 
 diplomacy he had triumphed. The subtle 
 lessons of Mazarin he had learned well, and 
 
 67
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 applied with masterly discretion. Never was 
 there a pupil more apt who yet perhaps had 
 no spark of real genius. Charles II. had learned 
 at his Court to live for the delights of the 
 garden of Daphne ; but he disdained the other 
 traits of Louis' character his orderliness, his 
 industry, his readiness to leave the palace for 
 the camp, to exchange the enchantment of the 
 favourite of the hour for the thrill of battle. 
 
 Louis was neither a great soldier nor a great 
 statesman ; but, eager to be both, the day came 
 when, as soldier and as statesman, he had won 
 pre-eminence : and the world accepted him 
 for what he would be. His beloved Versailles 
 was now at last complete ; and the Court of 
 France, a world to itself, peopled with beauties 
 and cavaliers too dainty to endure the manners 
 of Paris, nursed dreams that, strangely enough, 
 were never realised by the Grand Monarque, 
 but were reserved to be the glory and the ruin 
 of the Corsican emigrant who, poor and friend- 
 less, saw in a later generation the Throne of the 
 Bourbons swamped in a sea of blood. 
 
 The day of the sweet Valliere, of the tyrant 
 Montespan, of the lovely tigress Fontanges 
 was at the time of which we write past. Louis 
 was no longer the mettlesome blade who had 
 poured out rivers of gold on fetes to delight 
 Valliere, and had raced the winds with Fontanges 
 
 68
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 in the delirium of the chase at Fontainebleau. It 
 was the austere repentant Louis who had fallen 
 under the spell of Madame de Maintenon, who 
 one day recalled the existence of his little 
 English friend of the sixties, the old-time guest 
 of the lovely Henrietta of Orleans and his 
 brother Philip. . . . Most apropos, Stuart 
 demoiselle ! To the devil with her sister Mary 1 
 She had married his arch-enemy Orange. But 
 Anne remained ; Heaven-sent Anne ! She 
 would be another Jeanne D'Arc, not a Jeanne 
 mounted on charger, with lance in rest cheering 
 his troopers onwards, but a Jeanne either to win 
 towns and plains for him, or to prevent Orange 
 from winning them, by bestowing her hand on 
 the prince approved by France. 
 
 Louis had learnt in tears that marrying and 
 giving in marriage was the time when an astute 
 King mapped out the frontiers of his future 
 empire, and snatched victories that reduced his 
 enemies to the dust, without the loss of a man 
 or a ducat. He had been obliged to master that 
 lesson while yet the fire of young blood made it 
 unendurably bitter. It was a lesson paid for in 
 the romance of his early youth. Marie Mancini, 
 niece of Mazarin, had won his affections when he 
 was only twenty-one, and piteously as ever prince 
 pleaded for his life, did Louis pray the Queen- 
 mother, Anne of Austria, and the Cardinal, for 
 
 69
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 permission to follow the impulses of his heart. 
 But in vain were all his prayers, and Louis had 
 to resign his beloved Marie for a bride whose 
 dowry was worthy of his kingdom. 
 
 If Marie Mancini had been sacrificed to an 
 ideal, why not Anne Stuart ? So France com- 
 peted with Spain and Austria and Holland for 
 the privilege of presiding at the sacrificial altar. 
 The ambition of Louis was to surmount the 
 Crown of France with the Crown of the Empire. 
 The policy of Austria and her allies was to thwart 
 the schemes of France, and their ablest instrument 
 for this purpose was the redoubtable Orange. 
 The enmity with which France and the Austrian 
 Empire regarded each other was reflected in the 
 policy of every European State. So powerful 
 were these rivals that their neighbours should 
 perforce take sides, the solitary Power which 
 might have enjoyed a position of independence 
 being England. Her friendship was therefore 
 a boon eagerly coveted by the continental 
 princes. Charles, however, had to meet the 
 demands of his extravagant seraglio, and was 
 glad to barter his political opportunities for a 
 pension from Louis and the favour of Louise de 
 Querouaille. Thus it came to pass that the 
 English king had to experience the mortification 
 of seeing his niece figuring as a mere pawn in 
 the politics of foreign States. 
 
 70
 
 After a contemporary picture. 
 MADAME DB MAINTENON. 
 
 p. 70.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 North and south, east and west, through 
 Europe, the envoys of the opposing Courts 
 posted in quest of princes agreeable to their 
 policy, who might be put forward as suitable 
 aspirants for the Royal damsel. But a famine 
 had fallen upon the Continent, and eligible 
 bachelors grew suddenly scarce and of great 
 worth. England was the land of princely 
 uncertainty. Who would go there to seek an 
 alliance which seemed to offer some prospect 
 of a part on the stage of another tragedy of 
 Whitehall, in which James of York would figure 
 in his father's place, and wise Heaven alone could 
 tell what distinction on that day of wrath would 
 be assigned to Anne's husband ! 
 
 The subtlest schemer in this elaborate comedy 
 of matchmakers was William of Orange. He 
 had married Anne's sister Mary in defiance of 
 her father, almost in defiance of Charles, although 
 he had a year or two before apparently thrown 
 away his chances by refusing the Princess's hand. 
 Bitterly had Mary cause to regret his repentance 
 of his first scornful rejection ; and to The Hague 
 Anne could always turn to contemplate in its 
 most arid desolation married misery. William's 
 signal qualification as a bridegroom was that the 
 bride's family were afraid of him, and made the 
 mistake of supposing that an uncousinly cousin 
 might be converted to a more affectionate dis- 
 
 71
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 position by forging for him newer and closer ties 
 of kinship. 
 
 Mary's departure for Holland was, for the 
 bride, more akin to a funeral than a wedding. 
 It was indeed a festival only for one of the 
 maids-of-honour, Mary's old playfellow Elizabeth 
 Villiers. The chivalry of this brother-in-law, who 
 now would be her pilot to matrimonial happiness, 
 Anne might well have distrusted. Louis was at 
 least a connoisseur of the beautiful if a bad 
 husband. His Paris was the city of light. 
 But out of The Hague nothing lovely could 
 come. Better to be another Henrietta of 
 Orleans, numbing disappointment with the 
 narcotic of pleasure, than a Mary of Orange, 
 sick with sorrow, and mooning away her days 
 under the frigid rule of an austere Lothario ! 
 
 Just as the fate of Arabella Stuart may have 
 deterred her from eloping with Mulgrave, so the 
 same sad story may well have made Anne rejoice 
 that William was not the absolute master of 
 her destiny. Arabella had been condemned to 
 celibacy by James L, who feared that the 
 unhappy lady's children might become rivals for 
 the Crown. The friendless girl was imprisoned 
 at the will of the Sovereign, while the noble she 
 dared to look upon with favour was sent to the 
 Tower. When, in a frantic effort to secure 
 liberty, and love, and the joys of home and 
 
 73
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 husband, the girl donned doublet and hose, and 
 fled, the malice of the King pursued her, thwarted 
 her, and brought her back to lifelong imprison- 
 ment and to madness such as crazed Ophelia ; 
 until, finally, a broken heart released a broken 
 spirit, and Arabella Stuart passed beyond the arm 
 of a jealous tyrant. Just as James I. plundered 
 Arabella's life of all that a woman cherishes most 
 tenderly, so would Anne have been the victim of 
 William, had she been at his mercy. But, luckily 
 for her, his power was not in proportion to his 
 selfishness, and all he could do was to impede 
 the negotiations for her marriage, and stave off 
 as long as possible the evil day of the nuptials. 
 
 William had a double claim upon the English 
 throne, through his mother, the sister of Charles II., 
 and through his wife. Amongst the neighbour- 
 ing German princes there was one too with Stuart 
 blood in his veins, who might one day prove a 
 rival to William's ambitions, and whose choice 
 of a wife was consequently a subject that caused 
 profound anxiety to the beneficent Dutchman. 
 This was young George Louis of Hanover, son 
 of the Elector, and afterwards George I. of 
 England. George Louis was the great grandson 
 of James I. through his daughter Elizabeth, who 
 had married Frederick the Elector-Palatine. 
 
 George Louis was in 1680 in his twentieth 
 year, and already a young profligate for whom 
 
 73
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 his mother earnestly desired the reforming 
 influence of a wife. And the worthy maiden 
 Anne Stuart wanted a husband ! Here was a 
 prospect irresistible to matchmakers, who would 
 think only of the happiness of the young people. 
 The sanguine thought the problem of Anne's 
 future solved, and other problems too, which 
 to politicians were of immeasurably greater 
 moment. But it was not yet the hour for 
 optimism. The ever-vigilant William had to 
 guard against setting up a rival to his hopes ; 
 and Louis Quatorze had to look forward to 
 George Louis in a dual role as a German 
 ruler, and as a possible king of England mar- 
 shalling his twofold strength on the side of the 
 Empire against France. In 1680 the young 
 Hanoverian paid a visit to The Hague, and 
 shortly afterwards an event occurred which 
 foreshadowed the future course of English his- 
 tory, though none were so blind to the direction 
 in which affairs were slowly drifting as the 
 personages most deeply concerned. 
 
 Up the Thames, with all the pomp of 
 mediaeval pageantry, to visit the Court at 
 Whitehall came the young German prince, 
 who, when the next century was young, was 
 to enter London as the founder of a new 
 dynasty, the first Hanoverian king. George 
 Louis had arrived to pay his devoirs to his 
 
 74
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 English kindred. Such was the formal ex- 
 planation of his coming. But a motive more 
 tender impelled this pilgrimage to a land that 
 the youth had learned from his mother, and she 
 from his grandmother, to regard with appre- 
 hension. There was Anne ! And he kissed 
 her before all the Court, while the King and 
 the courtiers looked on at this meeting, which 
 promised to weld together two branches of the 
 Stuarts in a fashion little to the taste of Orange. 
 George was apparently well pleased with his 
 English relatives, and, above all, with his young 
 cousin of York. King Charles spared no pains 
 to make himself agreeable to his German kins- 
 man, and the wiseacres, putting their heads 
 together, already began to talk of a Royal en- 
 gagement. The Prince was only twenty, so 
 that in years he was more a match for Anne 
 than was William for her sister Mary, who 
 was her husband's junior by about a dozen years. 
 In his case, however, time hardly mattered. 
 His heart was never young ; nor had his spirits 
 ever the buoyancy of youth. Not all the British 
 Court, however, watched with sympathy the 
 young German's coldly diplomatic wooing. Of 
 his foes the chief were the King's son, the 
 Duke of Monmouth, and the Earl of Danby. 
 What Monmouth wished was but an echo of 
 craftier minds, who employed his vanity to his 
 
 75
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 undoing. Danby's policy was, however, iden- 
 tical with that of Orange, who has been blamed 
 that George recrossed the seas without taking 
 with him the heart of the Princess of York, no 
 longer precious, now that all the world knew 
 there was no eager rivalry for its possession. 
 
 That kiss which had edified the Court was 
 left to Anne only as a bitter remembrance of 
 a mortifying episode. George departed from 
 Whitehall without making any sign. He had 
 had enough of England and its Royal Family, 
 and would bestow his affections on one who, did 
 she but know it, was more unfortunate than the 
 forlorn Lady Anne ; and she must have begun 
 to repine that for an English princess there 
 was the asylum of no sequestered cloister, where, 
 if suitors there were none, there would at least 
 be peace. Whatever the share of blame that 
 properly belonged to Orange, of George himself 
 it was probably true that he disliked the notion 
 of being drawn into the affairs of a country 
 where, in Court and Parliament, chaos reigned. 
 
 Between him and King Charles there was no 
 affinity, still less had he anything in common 
 with the Duke and Duchess of York. Above 
 all, Anne knew nothing of his beloved Hanover, 
 ignorance that might in George's eyes have 
 damned the fairest maid in all England. So 
 back he went to his home, the Man of Destiny, 
 
 76
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 who would return thirty years afterwards to 
 assume the Crown for which the Lady Anne, the 
 rejected of his youth, had by a strange vagary of 
 fortune sinned and suffered to endow him ! 
 
 Two years rolled on. One German prince 
 after another was, in this quarter or that, pro- 
 posed as a candidate for Anne's hand. But for 
 this reason one was rejected, for that reason the 
 other. In the midst of all this insincerity and 
 make-believe, well might Anne have begged of 
 all her gods to revive her passion for basset 
 and lansquenet, that she might not die of a 
 broken heart, with gay and handsome fellows 
 around her, ready to console her if only they 
 dared, or rather if only she dared to flash upon 
 them the glance of invitation or acquiescence. 
 
 For a space, brief and brilliant, Anne's name 
 was coupled with the chivalrous Charles XI. of 
 Sweden. But Louis had other designs for Sweden 
 than a marriage which might well alter the whole 
 current of European history ; and Orange would 
 probably have resorted to desperate expedients to 
 prevent a union which would have imperilled the 
 fair edifice of his hopes. It looked, indeed, in 
 these gloomy days as though the best prince she 
 would ever possess would be the king of trumps 
 at the card-table, and that Orange would enjoy 
 the satisfaction of seeing his young sister-in-law 
 glide into the slough of confirmed spinsterhood. 
 
 77
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 But at last Anne was led over the Rubicon to 
 the unknown knight, who proved to be George 
 of Denmark. His highness was insignificant 
 amongst princes. But amongst husbands of his 
 day he earned a sort of canonisation ; for of all 
 the tears that Anne shed and her life was brim- 
 ful of sorrow not one could be charged to his 
 account. Orange hated him, perhaps for no 
 better reason than that George regarded him 
 with awe. The Dane was a strapping soldier, 
 as weak in intellect as he was gigantic in physique ; 
 as brave as a lion in battle, but with that dread 
 of the contempt of sharper wits which some dull 
 fellows are intelligent enough to feel. George 
 possessed no quality of head which could appeal 
 to the fragile Dutchman ; and qualities of heart 
 had little attraction for one whose schemes and 
 ambitions were bounded by no vestige of scruple. 
 He did his best to have the marriage abandoned, 
 and nominated the Electoral Prince of Branden- 
 burg as a substitute for the honour. But Charles 
 was weary of William and of his Machiavellian 
 proposals. France was satisfied with the Prince 
 of Denmark, and the bargain was struck. 
 
 Thus ended the long-drawn-out comedy, and 
 the part for which she had been cast by destiny 
 was assigned to Anne of York, who, in July 
 1683, in her nineteenth year, became the bride of 
 a Royal moss-trooper. 
 
 78
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 day was gone, the day of dazzling 
 brightness. It was night, and the King 
 slept, would sleep for ever 1 
 
 " Poor Nelly ! Don't let her starve," were 
 almost the last words Charles uttered ; these, 
 and an apology for being so slow in dying. 
 The others might look to themselves, Louise 
 and Barbara, and the rest. They were person- 
 ages of consideration in the land, who met 
 ministers on terms of equality, and boldly threw 
 themselves into the war of factions ; Louise 
 daring even to hope that her son might oust 
 the Duke of York, and be chosen for the Crown. 
 
 But when Charles breathed his last, a strange 
 paralysis seized the factions. The King was 
 dead and the King lived ; not Monmouth, or 
 Richmond, or Orange, but James of York. 
 Without a murmur, courtesans and courtiers, 
 they all saluted him as their Sovereign. Dis- 
 loyalty was dumb. 
 
 Within these last few hours James had 
 risked much in an adventure for his dying 
 
 79
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 brother's sake, an adventure undertaken for the 
 King's soul, that recalled some forty years 
 before, when the life of Charles was saved at 
 Boscobel, as flying from his enemies after the 
 battle of Worcester destruction threatened him. 
 The oak-tree at Boscobel that hid the fugitive 
 Prince in its loyal bosom was a familiar friend 
 to one, who often in these days of religious 
 persecution stood in need of such a retreat. 
 This was Father Huddlestone, a Benedictine 
 monk. The monk and the oak saved the Prince 
 after the calamity of Worcester. 
 
 Then the storm passed ; and the Prince forgot 
 the priest, and thought but little of the oak-tree 
 that preserved him for the dignity of a throne 
 and the joyous years of a despotism of pleasure. 
 But at last the clouds gathered again. The 
 affrighted Prince turned to the hour-glass. Alas ! 
 these silent sands trickling to the final grain 
 afforded no solace. It was another more terrible 
 Boscobel ; for it was for him the very end of the 
 world. Oh for the gentle Huddlestone and the 
 kindly, loyal oak ! With that appeal in the dying 
 man's heart, the Arch-Magician willed a miracle ; 
 and lo! here was Huddlestone on his knees be- 
 side the bed of the reprobate King, just as 
 though all the intervening years had been but a 
 dream, and Whitehall, the home of the gallant 
 Pendrills, close by the woodlands of Boscobel. 
 
 80
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Little wonder the fascination of the Stuarts 
 subdues each succeeding generation, when Heaven 
 itself transformed the death-chamber of its most 
 cynical prince into the very alembic of romance. 
 
 When by a secret door the Benedictine entered 
 the bedroom of the expiring monarch, the drama, 
 the tragedy of realism, achieved its purest 
 triumph. Little had Charles recked about the 
 mysteries of eternity while bright eyes warmed 
 his vagabond blood. And now, in his supreme 
 need, Louise de Querouaille, his favourite com- 
 panion, was disconsolate, not for losing her Royal 
 lover, but lest her lover should lose his soul. 
 Most precious soul now to one hitherto greedy 
 only for honours and gold ! Fools and children, 
 with some faint spark of saintship in the midst 
 of all their devilry, these mortals be ! Louise it 
 was who sent to James, begging that he should 
 get a confessor for the dying man. James 
 hurried to his brother's bedside, around which 
 crowded a number of those entitled to the entre'e. 
 Whispering in the ear of the King, James in- 
 quired if Louise's message were really a mandate 
 from the Sovereign. 
 
 " With all my heart ! " answered Charles, who 
 feared, however, that his brother would incur 
 grievous peril by obeying his behest. 
 
 " Though it cost me my life, I will bring your 
 Majesty a priest," was the reply of the soldierly 
 
 VOL. 1 81 G
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 duke who, on the threshold of his new honours, 
 was yet ready to take a risk, which might well 
 have lost him the Crown. 
 
 Hither and thither the Royal messengers 
 hurried through London, scouring the town for 
 a priest, but no priest could be found to shrive 
 the dying monarch ; and it seemed as though 
 Charles were doomed to pass away, unfulfilled the 
 last desire of a heart that had worshipped in 
 Desire its lord and its god. Then by sublime 
 coincidence the venerable Huddlestone appeared 
 on the scene ; and the oak-tree episode that had 
 followed the fight and disaster of Worcester 
 became an allegory, a prophetic symbol, that 
 was accomplished in the death-bed repentance 
 of a rake whose sins, and selfishness, and dying 
 act of contrition, and one knows not what else it 
 may be, lend to his memory a charm that is 
 immortal. 
 
 A young married lady living at the Cockpit in 
 Whitehall was an agitated, and not altogether 
 friendly, observer of the altered fortunes of James, 
 Duke of York, now James II. The lady was 
 the Princess Anne, who for a couple of years had 
 been the wife of Prince George of Denmark. 
 
 The Princess had reached her twenty-first year 
 when King Charles died. Life at the Cockpit 
 should have been a happy one for a young woman 
 of larger mind and livelier affection for her 
 
 82
 
 From a photo l>y Eini-ry Walker, afti'r the painiini; by P. Miininnl in the National Portrait Gallery. 
 THK DUCHESS OP PORTSMOUTH, 
 
 LOUISE RENEE DE PENENCOURT DE QUEROUAILLE. 
 
 p. 82.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 kindred than Anne cherished. Her income was 
 magnificent, her fortune was without a shadow, 
 her home, if dull when compared with Whitehall 
 or St. James's Palace, was at least not marred by 
 a husband's infidelities. But Anne was not at 
 peace with herself. A strange spirit of unrest 
 had taken possession of her, filling her with 
 ambition and impatience. The way of the Stuarts 
 was not her way at all. With all their faults, 
 that unfortunate dynasty always expected loyalty 
 from its members, and found it. James himself 
 was one of the most bitterly persecuted, but one 
 of the most faithful subjects of the King. There 
 was chivalry and profligacy and prodigality in the 
 veins of their men and women. But they loved 
 splendour and pleasure rather than power. They 
 had no Richard of Gloucester, no Henry Tudor. 
 Their jealousies were not about Crown jewels, 
 but about the jewels of the Court ; and in nigh a 
 century of English sovereignty the race had so 
 far bred no usurper. 
 
 One reviews the gallery of them all, and finds 
 there none like Anne. Most of her defects, and 
 all her virtues, were from her mother ; her ambi- 
 tions were from the race of lawyers, not from the 
 race of kings. Instead of revelling in youth and 
 rank and splendid fortune, Anne despised the 
 honours she might have enjoyed, and in secret 
 hungered for those to which her father had 
 
 83
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 attained after long years of suffering and 
 uncertainty. 
 
 Differences of temperament do not explain 
 Anne's want of affection for her father, nor 
 yet the fact that her grandfather carried "a 
 green bag " to the law-courts, the odour of which 
 was said by a supersensitive prince to cling about 
 the person of her mother ! It would be a mad 
 world indeed were parents loved only by children 
 of dispositions congenial to their own. Nature 
 had apparently implanted in Anne no sense of 
 duty, and art had done nothing to fill the void. 
 That it should be so was a punishment greater 
 perhaps than James merited in yielding up his 
 right to be master of the destinies of his children. 
 It was only, however, after her marriage, when 
 entirely removed from the influence of the gentle 
 Mary of Modena, that malice and envy began to 
 flourish luxuriantly in the young Princess's bosom. 
 Surrounded by every luxury that her father could 
 provide, his generosity seemed only to inflame 
 the envy which, with the perfection of art, was 
 concealed by this Royal actress. 
 
 The Cockpit, so liberally endowed by its 
 mistress's father, was, from the days of her 
 honeymoon, a school of treason towards its 
 paternal benefactor. In this respect the place 
 was but preserving its traditions, for its previous 
 tenant was the crafty Danby, ever James's foe. 
 
 84
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The misfortunes which the Duke and Duchess 
 of York had to encounter during the last years 
 of Charles's life were shared by Anne until the 
 time of her marriage. She was a partner in 
 their exile, and in sorrows that pressed still 
 more heavily upon them she, too, suffered, and 
 mingled her tears with theirs. The story goes 
 that Anne quarrelled one day with Mary of 
 Modena, who, they say, threw a glove in her 
 stepdaughter's face. Mary was proud and quick- 
 tempered, but it is unlikely that she ever mani- 
 fested resentment in a manner so undignified, least 
 of all to one whom she desired to love, if only 
 that she might promote her husband's happiness. 
 
 Buoyant spirits and a lively wit were natural to 
 Mary before sorrow had crushed her to the dust, 
 and strange would it be if such qualities did 
 not attract Anne to one but little older than 
 herself, who, moreover, in loving her, possessed 
 the key to her heart. The key, indeed, to all 
 hearts was the young Italian's in the early 
 days of her married life, and even her imperfec- 
 tions were those which might be readily forgiven 
 by a spirited people who, slow to evince emotion 
 themselves, readily excuse the lapses of warmer 
 natures. 
 
 Excessive pride of birth was, it would seem, 
 a blemish in Mary's character, if we may judge 
 of her by an anecdote in which the famous 
 
 85
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 General Dalziel made her smart for her in- 
 ordinate esteem of the Estes. James had invited 
 the General to dinner, but Mary thought the 
 gallant officer's rank hardly warranted this 
 honour. Unluckily for her, Dalziel arrived 
 just as she was debating with her husband the 
 etiquette of Royal hospitality. 
 
 " Madam," said the great man, blind to the 
 drollery of such a welcome, " I have dined at a 
 table where your father stood behind my back ! " 
 
 The General's allusion was to the time when 
 he served in the Imperial army and dined in 
 state with the Emperor, while the Duke of 
 Modena attended as vassal of His Majesty. The 
 incident may have had no better foundation 
 than the wit of some admirer of Dalziel's, or 
 some enemy of Mary's. If Mary was proud of 
 her lineage, Anne was hardly less disposed to 
 exaggerate the dignity of the Blood Royal, so 
 that even their foibles should have tended to 
 promote that harmony which stern circumstances 
 conspired to warm into tenderness and sympathy 
 and affection. 
 
 During the years immediately preceding 
 James's accession, alarms and anxieties continu- 
 ally disturbed the Duke of York's household, 
 welding its members more closely together, and 
 obliging its ladies to discover in each other's 
 society the solace and courage so grateful to the 
 
 86
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 strong and tried, and so indispensable to the 
 young neophyte in the hard school of fortitude. 
 Anne had to lean on Mary. Mary was glad to 
 confide in Anne. Then there came babes, to 
 link these two by ties deeper than friendship, 
 deeper than those forged by affliction. Above 
 all, there was Isabelle, the little sister who entered 
 Anne's life to comfort her for the loss of the one 
 whom Orange had carried off to The Hague. 
 Anne's religion was, it is true, almost a certain 
 shield for her in the midst of the strife of con- 
 tending factions. But however precocious Anne 
 may have been as a very young girl in her 
 father's home, she could nevertheless have had 
 but a faint understanding of the wheels within 
 wheels of intrigue which tended to make her 
 secure amidst all the perils which threatened 
 her parents. That ambition for the Crown, 
 which later gained complete mastery over her, 
 devouring every finer feeling, and effacing the 
 memory of the kindness lavished on her by the 
 impulsive and warm-hearted Italian, until it 
 became a consuming passion, raised no barrier 
 between the child and the child-wife. It was 
 only after her marriage that her eyes were fully 
 opened to the dazzling future which the confu- 
 sion of the times opened up to her, and that she 
 consented to dally with the splendid temptation 
 which wrought for her so much misery. 
 
 87
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Anne's heart would have been that of no 
 ordinary child did she shed no bitter tears when, 
 in 1679, she saw her home broken up, and the 
 pleasant music and games of St. James's ex- 
 changed for exile in Brussels. Her father and 
 stepmother were ordered out of the kingdom 
 by the monarch, who was powerless to protect 
 his brother and sister-in-law from the popular 
 clamour aroused by their adherence to the 
 Catholic religion. Anne and her little five-year- 
 old sister were not at first permitted to accom- 
 pany their parents, but were condemned to the 
 loneliness of a home from which had departed 
 all that lent it warmth and light. But the State 
 itself was not cruel enough to continue for long 
 the punishment of the Royal children. Anne 
 and little Isabelle, after a time, were permitted 
 to join their parents abroad. But the grief of 
 that separation was not easily obliterated from 
 the younger child's memory. 
 
 Nor could Anne have quickly forgotten the 
 despair of the little one, to whom every day was 
 a year until she was united once more to her 
 adoring mother. All too brief, however, was 
 that union. James hastened from Brussels to 
 London to see the King, who, being ill, secretly 
 desired his presence. Pleased as he was to greet 
 his brother, he was nevertheless obliged to order 
 him again out of London, but this time he 
 
 88
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 tempered the mandate by allowing him to reside 
 in Edinburgh. Now was the crown of the 
 vicissitudes of those bitter days at hand. James 
 conveyed his family from the Continent, and, 
 leaving Anne and Isabelle at St. James's, the 
 Duke and Duchess set out for Scotland. Only 
 once again did they see the younger child ; this 
 was when they came south for a brief space, 
 taking advantage of a lull in the storm that 
 raged round them. 
 
 Isabelle, stricken down with illness amidst the 
 frigid grandeur of St. James's Palace, begged in 
 vain for her parents. For the soft music of her 
 mother's voice she strained her ears, and on her 
 pillow fell the hot tears of impatient childhood, 
 impatient for the caresses of her father. It was 
 the depth of winter, and the end had already 
 come when, over the frozen roads, the post 
 reached Edinburgh that told of the lonely 
 chamber of sickness and tears, and a child's 
 futile prayers in the grim palace far away to 
 the south. Without a mother's hand to smooth 
 her bed, and soothe her spirit with whispered 
 legends of angel choirs and thrones of lily and 
 gold, little Isabelle's heart ceased its longing, 
 and the baby fingers groped no more for the 
 shelter of the loving arms in which she would 
 nestle to die. 
 
 In the gloomy palace, alone with the dead 
 
 89
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 ledge affected the girl towards him we know not, 
 but if her own life may be taken as a criterion of 
 her feelings, they would be those of deep re- 
 pulsion. Anne was, it has been said, no true 
 Stuart. In nothing was she less a Stuart than 
 in affairs of the heart, and it is at least possible 
 that she first learned to hate her father because 
 of that weakness of character which never spared 
 her mother from humiliation, and never spared 
 her own pride a wound. Incapable at once of 
 being either a great sinner or a great saint, no 
 kindly intuition helped Anne to forgive all by 
 teaching her to understand and to know all. 
 
 It was the age when morals were for the 
 halt, the blind, the maimed, the lowly. They 
 had no concern with princes. It was Madame 
 de Maintenon who begged Louis Quatorze to 
 be kind to his wife ; it was from his sister 
 that Charles II. begged as a gift Louise de 
 Querouaille. James was in this respect the 
 peer of his brother princes of Europe. In 
 London there was during his youth no gayer 
 spark than he, and the jealous husband watched 
 with terror the direction of his favours. Some 
 of his earlier adventures were the laugh of the 
 town, as when he was escorted by his friend 
 Talbot to Lady Southesk's, and the lady's 
 husband returned unexpectedly. Talbot, who 
 did not know his relationship to the lady, 
 
 91
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 assumed that the new-comer was, unknown to 
 himself, a rival of York's, and tendered him a 
 gentle hint to consider himself vanquished and 
 to retire. The husband did retire, but it was 
 to plan a vengeance which was to entertain a 
 society that could not be shocked. 
 
 At the period with which our history deals 
 the Southesk episode was long past, and 
 Catharine Sedley was the divinity who ruled 
 James's heart. " Ugly Catharine's " position was 
 well known to Mary of Modena, and doubtless 
 to Anne. Whatever Anne's feelings may have 
 been in connection with this scandal, of Mary's 
 there was no doubt, for she was distracted 
 with humiliation and jealousy. 
 
 When James succeeded to the Throne he 
 made an effort to shake off the dominion of 
 Catharine. But the victory at first rested with 
 the lady ; while his devoted Italian wife, ever 
 faithful to him in good and evil fortune, bore 
 with the dignity of a heroine the sorrows of 
 injured wife, of bereaved mother, and perse- 
 cuted queen. 
 
 By dint of prayers and tears Mary of Modena 
 at long last did succeed in weaning James from 
 the influence of Catharine, who, already Countess 
 of Dorchester, was further compensated for her 
 loss with four thousand a year. With all the 
 freshness of youth departed, and no attraction left 
 
 92
 
 her save her Rabelaisan humour, the Countess 
 nevertheless found a husband. The fortunate 
 suitor was Sir David Colyear, and his conquest 
 was the theme of one of the Earl of Dorset's 
 witty trifles : 
 
 Proud with the spoils of royal cully, 
 With false pretences to wit and parts, 
 
 She swaggers like a battered bully, 
 To try the temper of men's hearts. 
 
 Though she appears as glittering fine 
 
 As gems, and jests, and paint can make her, 
 
 She ne'er can win a breast like mine : 
 The devil and Sir David take her ! 
 
 The latter half of Dorset's prayer was heard. 
 Sir David took the lady, the marriage being 
 regarded as a sort of classic triumph of wit over 
 beauty. And as for the first half, which con- 
 signed the Countess to eternal damnation, we 
 may charitably hope it was averted. At all 
 events, when no art could " mend a ruined face," 
 or " make her a fine young thing," she became 
 a diligent church-goer, which, if not an infallible 
 sign of salvation, may at least be cherished as 
 a hopeful omen for want of a better. 
 
 93
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MERRY laughter of dames and gallants 
 rang out over the hunting-field as their 
 horses cantered gaily through the morning to 
 where Destiny was being deftly shaped in the 
 forge over the green. At that forge Fate was 
 the master-smith, and for the fun of the sparks 
 flying from his wonderful anvil, this rattling 
 cavalcade would have galloped right to the devil 
 himself. 
 
 As they rode they laughed, and when they 
 drew rein round a maid-of-honour and a prince, 
 both dismounted, heartier still was their mirth, 
 while the beauties blushed with what success 
 they could, and the cavaliers twitted them that 
 their success should be so small in presence of a 
 tableau so uncommonly delicate. 
 
 This master-smith was audacious and ingenious 
 too, trifling with hearts in the midst of the 
 excitement of the hunt, and forging links and 
 welding lives for the mere sport of flourishing 
 his hammer. This morning's work was to survive 
 in its effects for long years, until it ultimately 
 
 94
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 served to associate the Princess Anne with the 
 family which above all others owed to her fame 
 and fortune, and to which she was to be 
 indebted for her tyrant chieftainess. This 
 family was, it need scarcely be said, the 
 Churchills ! 
 
 It was a fiery steed and a young horsewoman's 
 faint heart that began the story. The girl 
 was indolent, plain-looking, eighteen-year-old 
 Arabella, sister of handsome Jack Churchill. 
 Arabella was in those distant days a maid-of- 
 honour in the York household. Her pale face, 
 tall figure, slender to spareness, and her spirit- 
 less manner in a circle where vivacity was almost 
 the first point in breeding, excited the derision 
 of companions, many of whom had reasons that 
 might not be published for esteeming beauty 
 and impudence above all other endowments. 
 James was one of those who was amused by 
 Arabella rather than attracted towards her, until 
 on to the scene galloped the mettlesome steed 
 which pitched her, as it were, headlong into the 
 Prince's life. 
 
 The adventure happened on a hunting expedi- 
 tion. Arabella was a timid creature, who would 
 gladly have exchanged the saddle for a ride less 
 dashing, but more secure, amongst the cushions 
 of a coach. It was ordained, however, that she 
 should not only ride on horseback, but that she 
 
 95
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 should be the best mounted of all the ladies in 
 the field. Almost in tears on finding herself at 
 the mercy of the animal whose restless capers 
 drew upon her all eyes, Arabella, instead of 
 attracting sympathy, became an object of amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 The ladies asked no better entertainment 
 than that she should distinguish herself as a poor 
 creature in the saddle. As for the gentlemen, 
 they were there to enjoy themselves, and the 
 more varied, the better the diversion. Whether 
 the hand that ministered to their fine apprecia- 
 tion of the ridiculous was that of a benefactor or 
 a benefactress, it would certainly be that of a 
 ministering angel. Arabella, in despair, tugged 
 at the bridle with all her strength ; but excess of 
 shame had left her nerveless, and the feeble 
 pressure on the bit only made her horse curvet 
 and prance more than ever, as though he, too, 
 began to relish the joke that was eclipsing the 
 sport of the day. Arabella, in despair, grew limp 
 with fear. Wo horse I Good horse 1 Steady ! 
 Steady ! All the prayers that a virtuous maid- 
 of-honour of eighteen might be expected to 
 remember rose to her lips, but prayers availed 
 not. If a maid-of-honour of eighteen ever 
 swears when faced by the dire emergency of her 
 life, perhaps her heart fluttered a swear, but 
 oaths, too, were unavailing. The Furies had 
 
 96
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 entered the brute. Out went his nose, and, gather- 
 ing himself together for the final effort of his 
 memorable performance, he was off like an arrow. 
 
 Bravely now Arabella ! Sit tight and invoke 
 your patron saint, for this is a race with the 
 devil himself, and if you fail history will hand 
 it down for ever . 
 
 The girl led the field at a flying gallop, with 
 the laughing courtiers spurring at her heels, and 
 goading her horse to his topmost speed with 
 the clatter of their headlong charge. It was 
 a short race. Arabella was too scared to faint, 
 and, screaming as wildly as though a mouse were 
 at play about her ankles, she fell or threw herself 
 from the saddle. There she lay on the turf, 
 frightened out of her wits but unhurt, in a plight 
 that only sisters of charity, or at any rate only 
 ladies, should have witnessed. But no sisters of 
 charity were there, only Court fops and damsels, 
 with James careering at their head. Soon the 
 whole gay company arrived on the scene, to 
 discover James at the side of the prostrate maid 
 lending her assistance. . . . The lady's distress 
 melted the heart of the Prince. And hers was 
 not stone to his kindness. Her horse had 
 cruelly betrayed her ; and there was no more 
 sport at the expense of Arabella, for her lover 
 was the King's heir. 
 
 Such is the story in some measure of how it 
 
 VOL. I 97 H
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 came to pass that when James ascended the 
 Throne the Churchills found themselves basking 
 in the favour of the Sovereign, and enjoying 
 the Princess Anne's unbounded friendship and 
 confidence. 
 
 The Princess's household at the Cockpit was 
 indeed the fortalice of this rising family. It 
 was an extra-territorial preserve, within which 
 their supremacy was unchallenged. The dignity 
 of Anne's position was proportionately enhanced 
 when James became King, and her new honours 
 were reflected in her household. Her old 
 friend, Sarah Jennings, now, of course, Sarah 
 Churchill, was made first lady of the bed- 
 chamber to the Princess, and her husband, Jack 
 Churchill, was raised to the English peerage. 
 Arabella had cemented the foundations of her 
 family's fortunes by yielding to James ; Sarah, 
 her sister-in-law, by never yielding in anything 
 to any earthly power, completed the edifice of 
 its greatness. 
 
 The progress of Sarah to the Cockpit from 
 the old manor house at Richmond, where we 
 saw her nigh two decades ago playing with the 
 little orphan princesses and the Villiers children, 
 had been a series of triumphal campaigns. From 
 babyhood she was the insuppressible, the in- 
 domitable Sarah. Her first appointment at 
 Court was as maid-of-honour to Mary of 
 
 98
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Modena at St. James's Palace, where her mother 
 had quarters as a Royal protegee. The little 
 maid was pert and handsome, and her precocious 
 airs were vastly entertaining to her Royal 
 mistress and her Court. She had a glib tongue 
 that was surprisingly critical and bitter too, and 
 a spirit for which fear had no existence. Kings 
 and princes, lords and ladies, might be very 
 great personages indeed, but before never a one 
 did little Sarah quail. At ten she had the 
 courage of a soldier, at fifteen she had spirit 
 enough to lead the King's army or give the law 
 to His Majesty's realm. Her mother a lady 
 whom the literature of the day does not always 
 depict in attractive colours was desirous at this 
 time of withdrawing her from the York house- 
 hold. Perhaps her motives did her honour, 
 perhaps she thought the establishment of a 
 Catholic prince an unworthy setting for talents 
 so brilliant ! But whether the widow was 
 agitated by maternal anxiety or reasons more 
 sordid mattered little, for Sarah had already 
 taken the future into her own strong hands. 
 There was a battle-royal, in which the uncon- 
 ventional young baggage proved herself too much 
 for the distressed widow, who not only lost her 
 cause, but likewise lost her rooms in the palace, 
 with so pathetic a story did Sarah excite in her 
 own favour the sympathy of her Royal patrons. 
 
 99
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Born to conquer, Sarah soon marched into the 
 lists of love, not, however, taking as an example 
 for imitation the frail Arabella. On that score 
 her mother need have had no anxiety : Sarah 
 was born for greater things than to be the play- 
 thing of any creature, however exalted his rank. 
 She might condescend to share a prince's throne, 
 but never affections that would have conferred 
 a more invidious distinction. Like an ever- 
 victorious general, proud and confident, she 
 surveyed the field of operations, and then 
 mapped out the plan of campaign which she 
 would carry to a successful issue, or die of 
 chagrin. Such a spirit was invincible, and so, 
 having vanquished all her rivals, handsome Jack 
 Churchill fell to her lot, the prize of war. Than 
 this conquest of hers there was no more promis- 
 ing soldier, no luckier favourite of fortune. 
 
 There were two days in Jack Churchill's life 
 when a false move would have meant the drop- 
 ping of the portcullis right in his teeth, the 
 portcullis guarding the way to the giddy heights 
 of fortune to which he at length attained. 
 One was that on which he asked Sarah to be his 
 wife and ally. The other crisis belonged to that 
 early chapter in his career when he was a page 
 to James, Duke of York. One day the page 
 attended his master at a military review. 
 
 " What would you like to be ? " said the 
 100
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COtJRT 
 
 Prince to the youngster, guessing, no doubt, what 
 his answer would be, for what boy's heart would 
 not leap to be a soldier at the spectacle of 
 columns of infantry, their fixed bayonets glinting 
 in the sunshine, advancing blithely to the rollick- 
 ing music of their bands ! And then at the 
 clarion notes of the trumpet ringing high into 
 the sky, the thunderous charge of the cavalry, 
 with sabres glistening along the hurricane- line, 
 like palisades of steel ! 
 
 At the moment of the Prince's question the 
 Horse Guards galloped past. They gave Jack 
 his inspiration. He would be a guardsman. Oh 
 but to carry a colour amongst these gallant 
 fellows ! 
 
 The boy's prayer was heard. His answer 
 delighted the Prince, and he got his commission. 
 
 The young officer of the Guards literally 
 vaulted from grade to grade. He could not 
 help himself. His sister Arabella, thanks to her 
 adventure in the hunting-field, enjoyed the favour 
 of one whose patronage might insure promotion 
 for an officer less competent to advance his own 
 interests than this young Guardsman. His 
 progress was handicapped neither by an obtrusive 
 conscience nor an excessive sensibility on the 
 point of honour. The ladies smiled on Jack, and 
 Jack smiled back for a consideration. They 
 repaid his condescension with more than maternal 
 
 101
 
 QflTEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 tenderness. The Duchess of Cleveland turned 
 from the King to the Guards officer, and the 
 young warrior so far consented to indulge her 
 passion for self-sacrifice as to accept from her a 
 gift of five thousand pounds. This high standard 
 of generosity he would do nothing to alloy, for 
 when the Duchess asked him for twenty guineas, 
 her funds running low at basset, Jack refused, 
 with that sweetness of manner which still left 
 her his debtor ! The five thousand pounds was 
 not, however, earned without some slight risk to 
 the gentleman who, though brave, was deeply 
 appreciative, and not without substantial reasons, 
 of the worth of his own person. King Charles 
 discovered the Duchess of Cleveland one day 
 with a lover. Without waiting to encounter the 
 Merrie Monarch's anger or raillery, his rival 
 leaped through the window. The gallant who 
 acquitted himself with such agile discretion is 
 supposed to have been Churchill. He did not, 
 however, escape altogether unscathed, his punish- 
 ment taking the form of a stinging insult. 
 
 " Since you have become her lover to escape 
 from starving, I forgive you ! " said the King, and 
 Jack was preserved from similar instances of the 
 Royal clemency by being sent to Tangier, which 
 seems to have been the Hades of unwise lovers. 
 
 It was in the panoply of a full colonel that 
 Jack one evening fluttered the hearts of maids 
 
 102
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 and dames at a rout at St. James's Palace ; and 
 who should cast an imperious eye on the dashing 
 warrior but young Mistress Jennings herself ! 
 
 Jack, distributing with the nice discrimination 
 of a business man, his glances and compliments 
 and the hundred-and-one attentions that were 
 the stock-in-trade of his flourishing commerce, 
 caught Sarah's eye. When these two looked 
 full upon each other both handsome, both 
 audacious, he a giant in intellect, she a giantess 
 in spirit it was as when the lightning courses 
 through the air, and one wonders if it is the gods 
 at play or the gods at war. 
 
 " A fine young thing that ! Pity she's as poor 
 as a church mouse ! " doubtless thought Jack, 
 unbending, perchance, so far as to smile upon a 
 person who, in his opinion, was of as little moment 
 as a palace kitten. 
 
 " Conceited coxcomb ! " thought Sarah. " But, 
 lord, what a face ! What a figure ! The eye ! 
 The waist ! . . . the devil ! " and Sarah could 
 have slapped the colonel's face that he was not 
 at her feet, begging her hand in marriage, and 
 imploring forgiveness for having ever yielded to 
 the blandishments of that wretched Cleveland. 
 
 " There's Catharine Sedley," said Jack to him- 
 self, " with the fortune of a Jewess, and as ugly as 
 sin. If only Mistress Sarah had half Catharine's 
 ravishing purse to set off her loveliness ! " 
 
 103
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 But Sarah won the colonel in spite of the gold 
 of all her rivals, and despite her own poverty. 
 James looked on them both as in some sense 
 his own children, for Jack was the brother of his 
 devoted Arabella, whose proofs of affection were 
 multiplying, if somewhat irregularly, the branches 
 of the Royal Family, while Sarah's happiness he 
 desired, because of the indomitable maid herself. 
 And so the union took place of this extraordinary 
 pair, who, having joined forces in matrimonial 
 treaty, turned adamantine hearts to all the world. 
 Henceforth, though divinely selfish in their greed 
 for wealth and power, they loved each other with 
 touching constancy, through every temptation 
 and trial, to the end. 
 
 From the time of their marriage the history of 
 the Churchills is not alone closely interwoven 
 with that of Anne. Theirs, indeed, largely shaped 
 the Princess's career. Almost from her cradle 
 Sarah's was the imperious will which to Anne 
 was ever the decisive influence, saving her as 
 child, and girl, and woman, from the trouble of 
 exercising an independent judgment. 
 
 By her alliance with one of the most engaging 
 personalities in England, Sarah's place in the 
 esteem of Anne became more firmly established 
 than ever. Lord Chesterfield, who knew 
 Churchill well, describes him as being irresist- 
 ible either by man or woman. Devoid of 
 
 104
 
 From an engraving by J. J. Van ilcr Berghe. 
 ARABELLA CHURCHILL. 
 
 p. 104.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 principle, he wound his way into the confidence 
 of all sorts and conditions of people by his strong 
 sense, his gracious manner, and his perfect 
 temper, a temper which reigned serene in 
 pellucid Olympian altitudes, which were never 
 overcast, even though Sarah herself flounced 
 round him in her wildest tantrums of rage. 
 
 At the Cockpit George of Denmark was an 
 amiable nonentity, loyal to his wife, and exulting 
 in the quality and quantity of the wine. The 
 worthy Dane had no wisdom with which to help 
 his wife in the difficulties which she created for 
 herself by dabbling in the turgid stream of 
 political intrigue. Denied the guidance which 
 would have been hers had she been more happily 
 mated, the Princess yielded herself up to Sarah 
 Churchill's thraldom. 
 
 She was the ruler of the Princess's household, 
 the ruler not only of the household, but of the 
 very heart and soul of the daughter of the King. 
 No father-confessor ever knew more intimately 
 the aspirations of his penitent's bosom than did 
 Sarah those of her mistress. To her the mind 
 of Anne was as an open book ; no wonder, for 
 the book was largely of her own making. 
 
 King James on his throne was as confident 
 of the loyalty of the Churchills as he was of his 
 own life. Across his mind no thought ever 
 flashed that in showering honours upon them he 
 
 105
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 was strengthening the fortifications of treason. 
 The Cockpit, he would have sworn, was the very 
 citadel of devotion to his Crown. But the 
 masterful intellects which dominated the Prin- 
 cess's household were already shaping splendid 
 dreams, already they were beholding visions, and 
 in their dreams and visions the poor Princess, 
 who was their minion, was queen, and high up 
 in the very zenith shone their own resplendent 
 star. 
 
 Spurred on by that unlovely ambition which 
 at the dawn of things made Heaven itself the 
 theatre of war, and brought to the depths the 
 rebel angels, the Churchills cared nothing for 
 King James, to whom they owed everything ; 
 nothing for Anne, who trusted them in every- 
 thing. When the dread day of reckoning came 
 for James he called confidently for the man 
 whose fortune he had made, for the idol of 
 the Cockpit. . . . Where was Churchill . . . 
 Churchill . . . ! 
 
 Out of the silence there came the clatter of 
 horses' hoofs, a clatter that grew fainter and 
 fainter till there was dead silence, and that was 
 answer enough. The Churchills, as we shall 
 presently see, had turned their backs on the 
 darksome night, on the angry sky, on the 
 murmurings of the coming tempest. 
 
 But we anticipate. Fate, the master-smith, 
 106
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 who, on the hunting-green, to the music of the 
 laughter of dames and gallants, had long ago 
 fashioned the bonds that made James the slave 
 of the Churchills, had not as yet sought the red 
 forge of tragedy, gaping through Cimmerian 
 night, where the King's Crown was to be welded 
 into a coronet of affliction, and his Queen sent 
 forth to exile, a Queen of Tears. 
 
 107
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 " TTTHAT relation are you to * lying Killi- 
 ^ * grew ' ? " said a gentleman to Harry 
 Killigrew, one of the gayest of that crowded 
 gallery of gay sparks who flourished during the 
 closing decades of the Stuart epoch. 
 
 Harry smiled pleasantly, for nothing came 
 amiss to him that his lively imagination could 
 possibly construe into a jest, and what was 
 coined for a withering insult was blithely trans- 
 muted into the virgin gold of playful humour. 
 
 " Sir," he replied, " there is no distinction in 
 our family : we are all liars ; my father was a 
 liar, my uncles were liars, and I myself am a very 
 great liar ; but I suppose you mean my cousin 
 Will, who never spoke one word of truth ! " 
 
 Harry's panegyric might have embraced con- 
 temporary personages of far greater consideration 
 than any members of his gifted family ; and to 
 none, perhaps, might it have been applied more 
 justly than to Robert, Earl of Sunderland. This 
 brilliant and cold-blooded intriguer takes rank 
 amongst the most consummate actors that ever 
 
 108
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 played a decisive part in the turning-point of 
 a nation's affairs. 
 
 Sunderland it was who made everything 
 possible by making the King absolutely im- 
 possible. He was the very prince of opportunists, 
 to whom his master's smile or his master's frown 
 was the single principle in statecraft that, admitting 
 of no dispute, was at once final and comprehensive, 
 the beginning and the end of reason, and justice, 
 and policy. To him there was no right and no 
 wrong. There was only, on the one hand, the 
 luxury of power, and, on the other, the sepulchral 
 desolation of obscurity. If in Courts there be no 
 sincerity, then must the ideal courtier be dubbed 
 " Sunderland." But with such gracious subtlety, 
 such perfection of word and of mien, did he 
 carry himself, that upon the mind of James no 
 shadow of suspicion ever fell that this urbane 
 mentor was not a paragon of fidelity. 
 
 Sunderland had a fascination to which few of 
 his contemporaries were impervious. If people 
 did not often love him, they marvelled at him. 
 It was a fascination that could not blind any 
 discerning judge to his deficiencies in all that 
 should go to the composition of a great and 
 noble character. James's confidence in Sunder- 
 land remained, indeed, proof conclusive of his 
 inability to estimate men according to their 
 deserts. He surrendered himself with child-like 
 
 109
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 confidence to the magnetism of one whose god 
 was the sun that was shining. That same 
 magnetism drove the Princess Anne to distraction. 
 With nothing but intuition to guide her, she 
 jumped instinctively to a fairly accurate estimate 
 of this dazzling personage. But while she hated 
 him and his Countess it was for reasons very 
 different from those for which honest men must 
 censure them. She herself was in her heart a 
 traitress, but her loathing for Sunderland was not 
 due to the fact that he too was steeped to the 
 lips in treason. On the contrary, she believed 
 him to be loyal from motives of self-interest, 
 and her bitterness against him sprang from the 
 success with which he acted the part of the 
 whole-hearted and zealous servant of the Crown. 
 At times she must have feared that Sunder- 
 land's talents would defeat all the King's enemies, 
 defeat the King's indiscretions, and ultimately 
 accomplish the miracle of defeating the man's 
 own insincerity, by achieving the triumph of 
 James's policy. Such thoughts stung her to 
 madness ; and voices were near to ensure that 
 they would never long be absent from her mind. 
 Did she speak, the conversation veered round to 
 Sunderland ; did she write, her pen spontaneously 
 traced his name ; and during those lonely hours 
 when conscience and natural affection and 
 ambition made war within her soul, the face of 
 
 110
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Sunderland haunted her misery, smiling on her 
 confusion an inscrutable smile. 
 
 A host of enemies stoutly opposed James's 
 policy. But the direst enemy of them all was 
 Sunderland, who posed as the enthusiastic sup- 
 porter of his Sovereign's policy, and who, to 
 attain his own ends, lent to the King's most 
 indiscreet measures his fatal countenance. James 
 was sincere in his religion, though, unhappily, as 
 imprudent as he was sincere. Sunderland's 
 religion was, on the contrary, known only to him- 
 self and Omniscience ; but in zeal for the advance- 
 ment of the ancient faith he was his Sovereign's 
 devoted servant, and with a light heart he gave 
 His Majesty a cordial hand along the road to ruin. 
 His own continuance in place and power was 
 the motive which inspired his counsels, sublime 
 selfishness the spirit which prompted his advice 
 in the Council-chamber. When the wind blew 
 Catholic, the Heavens be praised 1 When the 
 wind blew Protestant, the Heavens be praised ! 
 Praise under all circumstances to Allah, who had 
 made fools to be the salvation of clever men ! 
 When the most delicate weather-cock ever 
 designed was baffled by current and counter- 
 current the equanimity of one mind was a marvel : 
 it was that of Robert, Earl of Sunderland. In 
 the whole gamut of politics there was no move 
 that could disconcert one who was always ready 
 
 111
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to disarm evil fortune with the insinuating smile 
 of surprised delight. Plain men distrusted him, 
 dull men were afraid of him, honourable men 
 despised him. But when Robert thought it 
 worth his while to inspire the plain men with 
 confidence, to reassure the dull ones, or to in- 
 gratiate himself with men of honour, by sheer 
 address he vanquished all obstacles. 
 
 Sharp is the contrast between what Sunderland 
 was and what he ought to have been according 
 to all the laws of heredity : for while in his 
 blood there coursed the strain of a Bayard he 
 has left behind the record of an unscrupulous 
 adventurer. His father was a chivalrous country 
 gentleman, who bade farewell to his delightful 
 home to fight and die for his King, and leave 
 in widowhood the lovely Saccharissa immortalised 
 by the poet Waller. His brief married life was 
 an idyll, his letters from camp and battlefield 
 to his wife continuing a simple and exquisite 
 romance of cultivated society in rural England 
 which only ended with his life. At the battle of 
 Newbury he fell, fighting on the side of the 
 Cavaliers, and his little son Robert inherited a 
 great name and splendid fortune. In Robert 
 blended all the qualities that made his father and 
 mother so pleasing to their contemporaries. He 
 was handsome, gracious of manner, gallant in 
 bearing, while his intellectual accomplishments 
 
 112
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 were in keeping with a personality so engaging. 
 Years of travel abroad had made him familiar 
 with French, Spanish, and Italian. Contact with 
 the best society of the leading European capitals 
 had polished to the finest edge wits naturally 
 keen ; and what he did not learn of men and 
 affairs in the ordinary course was acquired at 
 the gaming tables, where he bartered his broad 
 acres for the crooked wisdom garnered amongst 
 professional sharpers. 
 
 Robert at Oxford was a leader in one of the 
 theological camps. He captained a troop of 
 undergraduates, who tore to rags the surplices 
 worn by the students of Christ Church at the 
 command of Charles II. Opposition to what 
 they considered Romanising tendencies may 
 have fired some of his comrades to this exploit, 
 but the pure fires of Protestant zeal were 
 in Robert's case enlivened by sheer devilry. 
 Robert of Oxford was the same wayward Robert 
 who, having brightened the salons of Paris and 
 Madrid with his elegant presence, returned to 
 London to fall in love with Anne, daughter of 
 the Earl of Bristol. Anne was a lovely girl, and 
 Robert, fascinated by her, stooped to conquer, and 
 did so with such dash and address that soon the 
 beauty struck her colours and capitulated to the 
 courtly young noble. But Robert was courtly 
 and caressing only at discretion, as Bristol's 
 
 VOL. I 113 I
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 daughter quickly learned, in a way that must 
 have provoked her to rage, the more maddening 
 because it could be gratified only at her own 
 expense. There was a lovers' quarrel at the 
 eleventh hour, and Robert, as a declaration of 
 independence, rode away. Whither was he gone ? 
 The noble house of Sunderland was ashamed of 
 its master's treachery. The noble house of 
 Bristol was struck with consternation ; but in the 
 midst of the commotion, back to his lady-love 
 hied the truant. There were forgiveness and a 
 wedding, and Saccharissa had a daughter-in-law 
 beautiful as she herself had been, but less discreet 
 than fair. Before the wedding it was Robert's 
 privilege to play the careless gallant, reckless of 
 the favour of the damsel too lightly won. But 
 after the wedding it was madame's day to play 
 the gallant and tame the bold Robert who had 
 tattered the surplices at Christ Church. 
 
 Entering politics, Sunderland became one of 
 Charles's ministers, and distinguished himself as 
 an enemy of James's succession. He did his best 
 to prevail upon Charles to support the measures 
 designed to divert the succession from his brother 
 in favour of the Prince of Orange. James knew 
 the whole story of base intrigue, but, with an ex- 
 cess of generosity for which he afterwards paid 
 dearly, he forgave Sunderland when he came to the 
 throne, and gave him a place in his Government. 
 
 114
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 But for Sunderland it should be the highest 
 place or none at all ; and thus began that 
 subterranean war in which, with fair faces and 
 black hearts, the Earl and his Countess would 
 have carried off the palm for deceit, had it not 
 been for the Princess Anne, who, alas ! must be 
 awarded the distinction, by reason of the ties of 
 blood which multiplied the darkness of her sin. 
 
 It matters little whether Sunderland ever 
 really intended to serve James with whatever 
 selfish loyalty his nature possessed. To him the 
 best king was the king under whom he fared 
 best ; and as the circumstances of the time 
 seemed to offer every promise of dazzling reward 
 to his talents for intrigue, he doubtless accepted 
 the secretaryship in James's administration with 
 earnest wishes for the prosperity of himself and 
 the King. 
 
 To promote the first and dearest of these 
 objects he desired to exchange his own compara- 
 tively modest post for that of Lord Treasurer, 
 an office filled by James's brother-in law, Lord 
 Rochester. To forward his schemes he chose as 
 his chief instrument a whole-hearted partisan of 
 the monarch, and one who, whatever his faults 
 may have been and they were hardly as black 
 or as numerous as his enemies would have us 
 believe was yet adorned to the end by loyalty 
 to the King. 
 
 115
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Dick Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnel, was a rake 
 of the type that might have stepped out of 
 the pages of Lever. He was brave as a lion, 
 ready to die for his friends or dispatch his foes, 
 always willing to fall in love with a fair maid, 
 and more disposed to make the favoured one his 
 wife than many of his associates. Amidst the 
 pleasures and distractions of the life of a Court 
 rake, he never forgot the miseries of his own 
 suffering country, and many an Irish gentleman 
 ground to the dust by the Penal Laws, was glad 
 to pour his misfortunes into Dick's ear, in the 
 hope of securing through his intercession the 
 clemency of the Crown. Dick's heart was tender, 
 and what interest he possessed was always 
 employed to help his unfortunate countrymen. 
 But Dick's pocket was also deep, and it is 
 alleged against him that he gratefully accepted 
 douceurs for his philanthropy. It is not 
 asserted against him, however, that he ever took 
 money for evil-doing, as in the case of either 
 Sunderland, his colleague and chief, or his 
 brother-in-law, Jack Churchill. Nor, as in the 
 case of Sunderland and Churchill, did he in the 
 day of trial change his coat, and turn his face 
 from the setting sun to where the new day would 
 dawn. 
 
 Of the corps of devil-may-care gallants who 
 made the days of the Restoration race merrily 
 
 116
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 by in one whirl of love-making, gambling, and 
 revelry, there was none more picturesque than 
 Dick Talbot. His princely air, his majestic 
 bearing, his joyous, reckless spirit, his Celtic 
 swagger captured James's fancy, and secured the 
 admiration of the courtiers, who approved those 
 of his faults in which they themselves were 
 participators, and envied him the others which 
 the devil had denied them. 
 
 The beautiful Frances Jennings, sister of Sarah 
 Churchill, was Talbot 's wife. There was, there- 
 fore, a certain indirect connection between the 
 Princess Anne's establishment and that of 
 Sunderland, which, though it did not foster 
 cordial relations between the two houses, and was 
 doubtless not intended to do so, nevertheless 
 had its weight with the crafty Earl in drawing 
 Talbot into his schemes. But he was not by 
 any means dependent on his wife for the 
 deference shown him by the designing Sunderland. 
 He was master of an income of about forty 
 thousand a year, no insignificant recommenda- 
 tion to a man who prized gold at its full worth, 
 and who was nearly always in need of money, 
 despite his magnificent patrimony. In a hundred 
 ways, one at least being of a despicable nature, 
 Talbot had shown in earlier days his devotion 
 to James, who, now that he was King, was well 
 disposed to reward loyalty so fervent. 
 
 117
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 But perhaps his crowning qualification for 
 Sunderland's friendship, or rather to be his 
 instrument, was a certain blustering ingenuous- 
 ness which made his thoughts clear as noonday 
 to one endowed with the astuteness necessary to 
 read them. Talbot's enormous wealth, his 
 religion, his nationality, his place in the King's 
 esteem, his relationship to the Churchills, his 
 want of discretion, his leonine daring, his 
 exclusively Irish ambitions, all furnished reasons 
 more or less cogent for the confidence reposed in 
 him by Sunderland. 
 
 The Earldom of Tyrconnel had already been 
 conferred on him by the King as a token of his 
 favour. To be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland was, 
 however, the ideal that dominated Talbot's 
 dreams ; and even this dream, perhaps, he would 
 never have dreamt, but for the inspiration of the 
 lovely Jennings, whom he had won after a court- 
 ship as chequered as that of the famous Charles 
 O'Malley himself. 
 
 The impressionable Dick first met the beauti- 
 ful Frances at the time when she had become 
 renowned for her virtue by showering around 
 St. James's Palace unopened love-letters. They 
 were from no less a personage than Dick's Royal 
 friend and patron, James. Whoever liked could 
 read the billets-doux, and soon the whole Court 
 was laughing at the Prince's confusion. To 
 
 118
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Talbot such extraordinary virtue allied with so 
 much beauty was irresistible. Bless the colleen, 
 and be hanged to the Prince : he would make 
 her his wife ! 
 
 Dick's eagerness cost him temporarily, under 
 circumstances to be presently sketched, the 
 treasure he coreted, and when it was too 
 late, he had reason to curse his folly in not 
 conducting the attack with more finesse. The 
 ardour of his love-making repelled the austere 
 beauty. As yet she had not the key to a tem- 
 perament changeful as the skies of his native 
 land. His high spirits when fortune seemed 
 to shine upon his suit wearied her. His im- 
 patience of rivalry was fatal to his prospects, 
 because adulation was the homage she saw paid 
 on every side to beauty ; and why should she 
 be denied her share of incense so seductive ? In 
 miniature this love-suit was a replica of the 
 historical duel of Celt and Saxon. The man 
 surrendered himself absolutely to the passion 
 that possessed him ; the woman was afraid of so 
 tremendous a sacrifice, it was so foreign to her 
 easier nature, so unlike the fine subdivision of 
 loyalty and affection which on all sides marked 
 the relation of the lover and his mistress. One 
 day it was war, the next peace. Talbot turned 
 in umbrage from jests which his English rivals 
 would have taken with uplifted eyebrows, or gay 
 
 119
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 repartee, according to the quality of the gentle- 
 man's temperament or wit. A gentle word or 
 inviting smile, and the beauty was as quickly for- 
 given, only, however, to be as quickly condemned 
 to see the thunder on his brow at some fresh evi- 
 dence of her vanity or. indifference. It was inimit- 
 able comedy with, as one might say, two endings, 
 one a little amusing, a little sad ; the other, the 
 final one, wholly Celtic in its poetry, Celtic in its 
 sadness, Celtic in its irreparable desolation and 
 ruin ! 
 
 120
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 rriO the Stuarts a flirtation was often as 
 **- momentous as a great campaign to other 
 dynasties. It was in some degree a long and 
 intricate series of love affairs, other people's love 
 affairs, that eventually raised Anne Stuart to the 
 dignity of the Queen of England. 
 
 In hastening the downfall of James and the 
 elevation of the Princess, Dick Talbot was an 
 unconscious but a powerful agent, and his com- 
 panion in the vaulting ambition that marked the 
 day of his prosperity was his wife, Frances 
 Jennings, the heroine of one of those Court 
 flirtations which might almost rank as affairs 
 of State. In its day that flirtation was the 
 delight of London, and even now its history 
 clothes with something of the animation of 
 rival lovers important personages in Anne's 
 circle. 
 
 The heart had no place in the schemes of 
 Sunderland. He was a traitor because fidelity 
 was not in his nature. Talbot and Sunderland 
 had for colleagues in the committee formed by 
 
 121
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 James as a sort of secret cabinet to which might 
 be confided his most secret aspirations, Father 
 Petre and Henry Jermyn, afterwards Lord 
 Dover. These four plotted and planned, they 
 coquetted with the whirlwind, and airily 
 challenged giants, one with an eye to this ad- 
 vantage, another with an eye to that, but all in 
 the end that what was to be should be that 
 Anne might rule and rue. These men hardly 
 gave the Princess at the Cockpit a thought. 
 She had neither a party in the State nor the 
 means of forming one, nor yet a husband capable 
 of leading one, and if she was not forgotten 
 altogether it was because of her religion. 
 
 The King idolised the Princess Anne. How- 
 ever earnestly he may have desired that she 
 should change her faith, he nevertheless repelled 
 with vehemence the faintest suggestion of 
 proselytism in regard to her. He relished 
 theological disputation as keenly as did his 
 grandfather, and was willing that Sunderland, 
 Rochester, and the rest, should vex their souls, 
 if not their consciences, in wrangles with casuists, 
 whose point of view their life-long habit of mind 
 rendered them hopelessly incapable of appreciat- 
 ing. But Anne, whose conversion would have 
 been more precious to him than all the gold in 
 the Treasury of France, he would not suffer 
 to be perplexed with such problems. In a letter 
 
 122
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to Fere la Chase, Father Petre wrote that the 
 King's religious advisers 
 
 " one day combined together to induce the King 
 to confer with his daughter Anne about religion, 
 saying : How would any one be of their faith 
 when their heirs were Protestants ? The King 
 requested them to leave his daughters to him, and 
 to mind their own concerns." 
 
 A gem of pure comedy is enshrined in the 
 same letter in the form of an allusion to Prince 
 George, which shows that the muddle-headed 
 Dane was in some sense the despair of the King 
 and his spiritual guides. All attempts to show 
 him the error of his ways produced the same 
 effect as if a spruce master of Italian fence, in 
 cambric shirt and velvet breeches, tried to engage 
 with delicate rapier a giant, cased in armour from 
 head to heel. The result was exquisitely ludicrous. 
 The man in steel could not hurt his assailant so 
 lithe of foot and agile in defence ; but, on the 
 other hand, the finest blade ever forged could not 
 penetrate the giant's cuirass. " He is a prince," 
 wrote Petre, " with whom I cannot discourse of 
 religion. Luther was never more in earnest than 
 Prince George. It is for this reason that King 
 James, who loves not to be denied, never has 
 pressed him in that matter." 
 
 Anne and the Prince were therefore excluded 
 from the circle of the King's apostleship. The 
 
 123
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 lady, however, possessed the gift of creating 
 grievances for herself out of the figments of her 
 imagination. In this way she professed to antici- 
 pate persecution because of her religion. The 
 notion was a triumph of perverse ingenuity and 
 demonstrated how ill-disposed was Anne to do 
 justice to her unfortunate father. There was not 
 a shadow of foundation for her fears. As a child 
 he had handed her over to Protestant tutors ; 
 as a young girl she had enjoyed the fullest 
 liberty to practise her religion. When James's 
 family were in exile in Brussels, in the heart of 
 a Catholic land, neither he nor Mary of Modena 
 ever dreamt of taking advantage of her isolation 
 to shake her religious convictions. 
 
 Nevertheless Anne pretended to fear that as a 
 married lady, living in the public eye at the Cock- 
 pit, surrounded by comforts provided by her father, 
 the freedom of conscience permitted her under 
 directly opposite conditions would be withdrawn 
 in favour of moral suasion, if not of the rack and 
 thumbscrew. 
 
 Deep grief, however, weighed upon the King 
 by reason of Anne's adherence to the Established 
 Church. Earnest, well-nigh to the point of 
 fanaticism, how could he but desire with pas- 
 sionate intensity that one he loved should be on 
 the side he was confident was right ? But while 
 his affection made him long for her conversion, 
 
 124
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 it raised up at the same time an insurmountable 
 barrier against any measures which could occasion 
 her distress. He probably hoped that in the 
 long run the force of example would influence 
 her more powerfully than an appeal to her 
 intellect ; for at her father's accession, and during 
 the succeeding years, she saw men of position 
 and ability one by one give their adhesion to the 
 ancient faith. 
 
 In the case of a young woman governed by 
 her emotions, nothing could be more natural 
 than that she should follow such a lead, and 
 adopt a course rendered fashionable by the King 
 and Queen, a course which the conduct of men 
 of talent approved as reasonable, and that of 
 astute statesmen confirmed as politic. And 
 turning from the living to the dead, and from 
 the seventeenth to the earlier centuries, zealots 
 on the King's side would cite the example of 
 the great Saxons, and Normans, and Plan- 
 tagenets, to sustain her should she turn to 
 the Bishop of Rome for guidance in matters 
 of faith ; while the example of France was before 
 her eyes to prove that unity of faith might mean 
 implacable hostility in politics, for Louis Quatorze, 
 a bigoted Catholic, had for his enemy the Pope, 
 while that model Lutheran, William of Orange, 
 her cousin and brother-in-law, was actually 
 fighting the battles of the Papacy. 
 
 125
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 To a mind, however, indisposed to decisive 
 action, it is always more agreeable to remain at 
 rest than to move, and it is this quality of heroic 
 inertia which probably preserved Anne to the 
 Church of England, more especially as it har- 
 monised with the prejudices which passed for 
 convictions in the case of Prince George, and, 
 what was more important still, commanded the 
 approval of the Churchills, the real autocrats of 
 the Cockpit. 
 
 How little logical is human nature, even when 
 its whole strength of purpose is concentrated on 
 a single aim, is illustrated by the honours paid to 
 Anne when she worshipped at the Royal chapels. 
 At Whitehall she attended in State the services 
 of the Church of England, and while the King 
 knelt at Mass before a Catholic altar praying for 
 her conversion, and reflected with pain that in 
 the most sacred things of life he was widely 
 separated from the child so dear to him, the 
 Princess, when attending chapel, was by his 
 orders accorded the same honours as if she were 
 Sovereign of England. This was the fashion in 
 which the doting father persecuted his child, hug- 
 ging to his soul, no doubt, the delusion that he 
 knew Anne, gentle, yielding Anne, so unassum- 
 ing and naive, the very lady, as he thought, to be 
 touched by those chivalrous attentions which sub- 
 due the affections and conquer through the heart. 
 
 126
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 To her he looked as the ultimate heir to the 
 Throne, and he probably solaced himself with 
 the thought that the Princess's talents and in- 
 clinations were not of the order to attempt 
 another revolution in the nation's beliefs, if at 
 her accession she should find the most potent 
 influences in English life in unity once more 
 with Latin Christendom. Her temperament, he 
 argued, was one to acquiesce in facts, and her 
 policy in religion, as in other matters, would 
 follow the line of least resistance. 
 
 He could base no fond illusions of the kind on 
 Mary's future. Nothing was more unlikely than 
 that she should ever forsake Protestantism. 
 When very young she had left her father's home 
 for Holland, and there had fallen under the 
 iron dominion of a gloomy and austere sect, a 
 dominion from which for her there could be no 
 emancipation. No wife ever more devotedly put 
 off all the attachments of childhood, of home, 
 and of country, than did she, making her 
 husband her idol, his people her people, and his 
 faith her own. Having cheerfully made every 
 sacrifice demanded of her, both her lord and 
 her fate were alike obdurate to the unhappy 
 Princess. Her husband could spare her but few 
 crumbs of affection, and to fill her arms and 
 bless her loneliness, there came no child. 
 
 Heavy as was this cross to Mary, to James it 
 127
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 must have seemed in some degree a just visita- 
 tion on the House that had plagued him with so 
 many anxieties, anxieties from which he could 
 find no refuge either as duke or king. If, there- 
 fore, Mary and William should succeed him, 
 their reign would be, as it were, but an inter- 
 regnum, after which his beloved Anne would 
 succeed her childless sister. By that time, with 
 the help of Heaven, she would be a Catholic and 
 her children likewise, and should her children 
 fail, the next heirs were his Catholic nieces, the 
 daughters of his dead sister, Henrietta of Orleans. 
 So the King in his cabinet mapped out the 
 future of England, and so in all likelihood would 
 it have been, but for the Royal architect himself, 
 who, in emergencies that called for a Richelieu, 
 was never more than his father's son, never more 
 truly a Stuart than when to be a Stuart was the 
 certain avenue to ruin. 
 
 While James was risking his Crown for his 
 religion, and his soul for his mistress, Sunderland, 
 as we have seen, was directing his schemes 
 towards supplanting Rochester in the Lord 
 Treasureship. Father Petre was working for his 
 Church with more zeal than judgment, and his 
 Sovereign was demanding in vain as his reward 
 from the Pope, a cardinal's hat. One can easily 
 see reason for the employment of these men on 
 a board, the existence of which, was an in- 
 
 128
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 vitation to ruin. But it must remain a puzzle 
 why even James II., who was so ingenuous in 
 his choice of advisers, should have included 
 Henry Jermyn on this ill-starred conclave 
 Jermyn, the villain of the love story which had 
 long ago made the beautiful Jennings the idol 
 of the town. 
 
 Anne would have special reasons for curiosity 
 concerning Henry Jermyn. Her interest would 
 have the usual Stuart motive. Her cousin by 
 marriage, the beautiful Theodosia Hyde, wife of 
 Clarendon's son, had fallen headlong in love 
 with Henry. Never were a coxcomb's ravages 
 amongst the hearts of the fair more inexplicable 
 than his. Theodosia was remarkable for her 
 loveliness in an age more critical of female 
 charms than any England had ever before seen. 
 Yet she lost her heart to a professional fop with- 
 out either majesty of bearing or grace of form, 
 but with conceit enough to match the beauty of 
 an Adonis and the talents of a Sunderland. His 
 physique was rather diminutive. But Jermyn 
 was not taught modesty by his stature. If 
 affectation could clothe with an air of bravery a 
 gentleman whose appearance was only common- 
 place, then could Jermyn hold his own with the 
 handsomest gallants of the Court. But alas 
 for the impotence of merely wishing to be 
 beautiful ! Jermyn only made himself ridiculous 
 
 VOL. I 129 K
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to eyes keen enough to relish his rebellion against 
 the decrees of incompetent nature. 
 
 That the coxcomb had plenty of courage was 
 proved in a duel about the infamous Lady 
 Shrewsbury, which nearly cost him his life. And 
 that he was bold and stubborn was shown in 
 other adventures. But it was not by flood or 
 field that Henry sought the path to glory 
 and advancement. As one of James's special 
 favourites, and a member of the secret committee 
 of four, the prize he set before himself was, of all 
 others, the captaincy of the Lifeguards ! Of old 
 he had indeed threatened to go forth to meet death 
 on the stricken field, but that was under circum- 
 stances exquisitely absurd, circumstances which 
 had brought him into antagonism with Talbot, 
 as his rival for the favour of Frances Jennings. 
 
 Jermyn had been banished from Court by 
 Charles II., whose pride was hurt at the favours 
 shown him by one of the most indulgent of 
 courtesans. Charles, however, was soon tired of 
 war with the lady, and on the conclusion of a 
 treaty of peace the woebegone Henry was 
 granted permission to return from his exile to 
 bask in the agreeable temptations of the Court. 
 But other people were proud as well as the 
 King; and "le petit Henri," rather than be 
 moved about like a pawn on a chessboard, 
 though it were to please a king, retired to his 
 
 130
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 place in the country, and there set up as a 
 philosopher amongst neighbours who were filled 
 with admiration at the wisdom of a recluse 
 thus calmly resigned to pastoral solitude, after 
 revelling in the vanity of the gayest of Courts. 
 
 From his hermitage Jermyn at length sallied 
 forth to subdue the charming Frances Jennings, 
 whose radiant beauty had already enslaved the 
 reckless Talbot. Frances, in the days of her 
 peerless youth, was the jewel of the maids-of- 
 honour, her scornful laughter ever making silvery 
 music, to which the humour in her glorious eyes 
 sparkled in rhythm. This was the bird that 
 Jermyn came to town to snare and destroy ; the 
 bird that Talbot wished to make the idol of his 
 life. 
 
 Here then was a battle for a fair ladye, a battle 
 between pigmy and giant. It was David and 
 Goliath over again, met as duellists on the field 
 of love, where the weapons were the uncertain 
 things that captivate a woman's fancy. The 
 precise Jermyn and the swaggering Talbot were 
 soon the joy of the whole Court, never more 
 elated than when a contest for a lady's favour 
 blazed into rivalry so fierce that every eye could 
 behold the sport of the conflagration. 
 
 The Count de Grammont says that Jermyn 's 
 motive in returning to Court was to bring 
 dishonour on Frances, and embellish with her 
 
 131
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 spotless name the roll of those who had fallen 
 victims to his elusive fascinations. One who had 
 discomfited the King anticipated little difficulty 
 in effecting this gallant enterprise. The bold 
 Jermyn began his attack with the address and 
 audacity of the ever- victorious lady-killer. Virtue 
 personified as Frances, and a dandified Mephisto- 
 pheles as Henry, played together, while the Court 
 looked on and laughed at the game, which boded 
 ruin for the one who had all to lose in this 
 pastime so enchanting. 
 
 As Jermyn had never seen the girl before his 
 dismissal from Court, if he returned with the 
 special object of besieging her virtue, he could 
 offer no excuse in palliation of his sinister designs. 
 Talbot, who loved the young maid-of-honour 
 devotedly and ardently, and coveted the privilege 
 of making her his wife, must have been beside 
 himself with jealousy if he suspected the shameful 
 prospect which his rival is said to have conceived. 
 The ravishing Frances behaved in the midst of 
 this fierce warfare for her heart with the weak- 
 ness of a woman and the strength of a Jennings 
 of the race of the inimitable Sarah. The delicious 
 excitement of the fray thrilled her. Eyes, ever 
 bright, shone now with added brilliancy. 
 
 While Jermyn and Talbot were the Richmonds 
 of the field, many another heart panted sad and 
 sore from wounds inflicted by the heroine's deadly 
 
 132
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 glances. In the intoxication of girlish vanity she 
 fell in love with the wrong man ; but while 
 giving Jermyn her heart to lacerate, of the price- 
 less treasure of her honour neither vanity nor 
 passion could rob her. Then the comedy became 
 suddenly sad, and the pomp of forces joining 
 battle was eclipsed in the turmoil that presaged 
 defeat and victory, victory and defeat. 
 
 The invincible beau tarried long about asking 
 the maid-of-honour to be his wife. These at 
 first were days of sweet uncertainty for the girl. 
 The beau was shy because he dare not tempt 
 fortune ! Poor trembling knight, fearful to hear 
 his doom decreed for ever ! So the maid deluded 
 and flattered herself. She looked in her mirror, 
 and what she saw there satisfied her. Nature 
 had moulded her divinely fair, with charms which 
 Nature alone can express, and she only when in 
 a moment of boundless prodigality she sends forth 
 youth, radiantly lovely, from her warm embrace. 
 
 Enamoured of herself, how could she believe 
 that her favoured lover's designs were ignoble ? 
 But at length came disillusionment. His visits 
 grew less frequent, his wit less scintillating, 
 because the lover had failed to prepare his dis- 
 course for the entertainment of his mistress. 
 The dream of love was dead. The maid-of- 
 honour had never before tasted the bitterness of 
 such humiliation. Oh ! that first crushing dis- 
 
 133
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 appointment of the dearest hopes of girlhood. 
 Could walls but speak, there was a chamber 
 within the Palace that tales might tell of a 
 disconsolate maiden's grief, of heart-broken sobs 
 and floods of tears that filled the night with 
 mourning, while all around her slept soundly the 
 gay companions of her waking hours. Was 
 there ever a girl more unfortunate, ever one more 
 foolish 1 Thus wailed Frances when all alone 
 before Heaven she laid aside the mask of pride, 
 and the airs of the gay coquette who never a 
 scar had received in the tourney of love. For 
 how could Frances know that her story was as 
 old as the world, and that every night, in every 
 land, the eyes of beauty were red with weeping 
 for the folly she too late lamented, the folly of 
 giving her heart too soon ! 
 
 Jermyn, eager to escape from the dilemma in 
 which his impudence had placed him without 
 ruining his reputation as a man of breeding, 
 volunteered to accompany an expedition to the 
 coast of Guinea. The final scene between the 
 pair was an ideal morsel of Court comedy. 
 Enough of this leave-taking has been handed 
 down to enable us to imagine the rest. 
 
 " Farewell, Mistress Jennings ! " said Hemy 
 with a sigh, as though he were the most miserable 
 of men at being banished from her presence, 
 perhaps for ever. 
 
 134
 
 From an engraving after the painting by Verelet. 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL FRANCES JENNINGS (DUCHESS OF TYRCONNEL). 
 
 p. 134.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 " Farewell, Master Jermyn ! " cried the maid 
 right merrily, laughter in her eyes if not in her 
 voice. " But why so sad going forth to this 
 splendid adventure over the ocean to the Coast 
 of Gold ? The thought of it warms my woman's 
 heart. In my veins I feel the mysterious call of 
 the African wilds. If I were but a soldier ! " 
 And she stamped her little foot as if she would 
 hear a martial spur jingle on her heel and a 
 sword rattle at her side. 
 
 Henry shrugged his shoulders as though 
 volumes could not tell the story of his consuming 
 passion, and the dejection of spirit in which he 
 was leaving England, and alas ! leaving her. 
 
 " Thou railest, beauty, "murmured the coxcomb, 
 his tactics thrown into confusion by persiflage 
 when he had rehearsed the part with tears. 
 
 " Pray, Master Jermyn," pleaded Frances 
 mockingly, "pardon a poor maid-of-honour if 
 she cannot find tears for your happy fortune, 
 if she cannot repine at the laurels that invite 
 you far away . . . even though she must stay 
 behind." 
 
 All the scorn and mockery died out of her 
 voice as she uttered the last words. They came 
 slowly and painfully, almost in a whisper, and 
 with half-averted head, lest her melting eyes 
 and the trembling of her sweet lips should 
 betray the fulness of her heart. 
 
 135
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Jermyn had acted a leading part in too many 
 tender scenes to be deceived. His courage rose. 
 Hope stormed his breast. Was the ice-maiden 
 thawing ? Ineffable delight. Had he stumbled 
 on victory along the line of defeat ? 
 
 He coined on the spur of the moment the 
 best excuse he could for the sudden passion that 
 had seized him for African adventure. 
 
 "No excuses," she answered, with a ringing 
 laugh and eyes innocent of a trace of grief in their 
 violent merriment. " You have already," she 
 went on gaily, " made captives of so many that 
 you do right to go in search of fresh laurels and 
 foreign conquests." 
 
 Henry was speechless. It was indeed time for 
 retreat without waiting to study appearances, 
 and call it an advance. 
 
 " I trust," she added, warming to her part with 
 spirit worthy of Sarah's sister, " that you may 
 bring back to London from Africa the foreign 
 ladies you enslave, in order to supply the places 
 of those whom your absence may bring to the 
 grave. . . . You have so many matters to engage 
 your time until your departure that I could 
 never forgive myself for stealing another moment 
 of it. I cannot, therefore, console myself with 
 the expectation of seeing you again before you 
 join your ship. . . . Farewell ! " 
 
 How beautiful the imperious girl looked to 
 136
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the hardened dandy, now that his last card was 
 played and his dismissal spoken ! How golden 
 her hair ! How inexpressibly inviting the hundred 
 nameless charms of a creature all wondrous 
 curves and tapering lines ! The red lips smiled 
 sweetly on him, over her eyes the lashes drooped 
 tenderly. Incomparable Frances ! Lost for 
 ever, and all for a tiny band of gold to encircle 
 one of those lissom little fingers, and a parson's 
 blessing. Poor Jermyn ! 
 
 The dandy was gone. But the comedy was 
 over, only to give place to tragi-comedy. Jermyn, 
 after all, remained in England, and Frances, 
 unable to endure the mortification of being jilted 
 by an insignificant coxcomb, jumped at an offer 
 of marriage from Sir George Hamilton, a member 
 of the Abercorn family, a gentleman without 
 fortune, but with an illimitable appetite for fight- 
 ing. Soon, however, the beautiful bride was a 
 widow, and Providence, an ever-vigilant manager 
 of the world's stage, contrived that Talbot should 
 opportunely lose his wife, whom he had taken as 
 a helpmate in his disappointment. The pair of 
 mourners met again in France. The flaxen- 
 haired widow was as fatal to Dick as the flaxen- 
 haired maid ; but the widow was kinder far. 
 They were married in Paris, and henceforth he 
 had as his ally a woman as clever as Sarah 
 Churchill, and one as daring and restless in 
 
 137
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 her ambitions, but one far more richly endowed 
 with the qualities that win love and strew its 
 path with roses. 
 
 Circumstances threw the sisters into different 
 camps. Sarah's future was inevitably linked 
 with that of the Princess Anne, and a dark out- 
 look she must have felt it sometimes at this 
 period, with George of Denmark enthusiastic 
 only over his bottle, and Anne ever fretting at 
 the inexorable law which condemns children to 
 await upon their parents for their inheritance. 
 Frances, on the other hand, was naturally a 
 loyalist. Her husband, if not the King's first 
 counsellor, was second to none in his confidence. 
 She was a Countess, thanks to the King. Her 
 husband was lieutenant-general commanding the 
 Irish forces, thanks to the King ; and in a little 
 while she would herself rank next to a queen, for 
 she would, she anticipated, be wife of the Lord- 
 Lieutenant of Ireland. She was loyal, therefore, 
 not only for favours past, but for favours to come ; 
 and if at times she bridled at the thought that 
 Henry Jermyn, her faithless lover of the old 
 days, shared with her husband the King's most 
 secret aspirations, to soothe her resentment there 
 was always the reflection that in her encounter 
 with the famous coxcomb she had dimmed 
 beyond repair his prestige as a man of invincible 
 gallantry. 
 
 138
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 "T ET some prince of magicians, risen from 
 ?i ^ forgotten tombs of Chaldea, wave his 
 wand above the city in the purple dome of 
 night and weave a wondrous spell, murmuring 
 incantations learned in schools that now lie level 
 with the sands of the desert, but which of old 
 were cradles of Eastern mystery where was 
 taught the lore of signs unfathomable. 
 
 Silvery beams, like vagrant rays from far-distant 
 stars, flit across the velvet pall of the sky. In a 
 twinkling they come and are gone north, south, 
 east, and west signs, indeed, unfathomable to 
 those who possess not the secret talisman. But 
 to those who know they are beams of light 
 with strands inwoven of gossamer grey, faintly 
 luminous filagree, foreign to earth, banned of 
 heaven, born of a necromancer's impious power. 
 They trace the flash of the Chaldean's wand 
 lulling Nature to sleep, and evolving a world 
 that for one fantastic moment obeys the wizard's 
 rebel rule. . . . 
 
 A curtain of blackness, dark as blindness, blots 
 139
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 out the city. Perhaps it is blindness, for one 
 knows not the way of the magician. Only for 
 a moment, then the curtain quivers as though a 
 breeze played with its vast inky folds, and shade 
 softens into shade until through the abyss of jet 
 things take shape, though dimly. . . . 
 
 Lo ! the spell is woven ! The city is enchanted ! 
 Here is London of the Stuarts ! 
 
 Time, dazed and blindfold, has gone astray 
 over the passes through the clouds of night, 
 and shrunken, dingy London of the days of 
 Anne lies before us, with the dead back from 
 their sepulchres, sleeping or waking, mourning or 
 roystering, as they did long ago when they still 
 had some choice in their parts, and the town was 
 in reality London of the late seventeenth century. 
 
 The curtain of blackness has dissolved, and it 
 is beneath a starlit sky we roam past the shrine 
 of Our Blessed Lady of Rouncyval at Charing 
 Cross down Whitehall. 
 
 Hark to the tramp of the sentinel pacing 
 round the ancient home of the kings in the 
 echoing silence of the night ! 
 
 On through the gates and courtyards, past the 
 guards, who call out no challenge, for citizens 
 come and go freely here. It is the castle of their 
 lord, and, with the familiar custom of feudal 
 times, it is their privilege to make his home in 
 some sense their own. 
 
 140
 
 ANNE AS PRINCESS ROYAL. 
 
 p. 140.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The Palace erected by successive monarchs, 
 without any uniformity of design, formed never- 
 theless a picturesque citadel of Royalty. Barely 
 a vestige of the great rambling pile remains 
 to-day ; but if one conjures up a vision of 
 Hampton Court at midnight, with its solemn 
 courts and mysterious alleys, its haunted lanes, 
 its deep arches plunged in gloom, its narrow doors 
 that seem to have been slammed for centuries, 
 its casements glistening darkly, significant of 
 deeds being done behind them that may not see 
 the light then with this picture in the mind's 
 eye, and being made aware of the general re- 
 semblance, travelling backwards through the 
 centuries, one easily recognises by the Thames 
 this Palace of Whitehall, where sleeps King 
 James II. 
 
 Forward now to the Cockpit, where abides 
 with her Danish lord the Princess Anne. The 
 Royal apartments and those of the great officers 
 rise above the river. Between them and the 
 Cockpit lie the Palace gardens, the bowling- 
 green, and the tennis-court ; while spreading 
 away behind is the Park, a noble expanse of 
 green, draped now in the demure vesture of 
 night. 
 
 The oaken door opens without word or touch, 
 for to-night magic reigns in Whitehall, and 
 crossing the threshold of the Cockpit one holds 
 
 141
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 one's breath in the very centre of the enchanted 
 Castle. 
 
 Softly now up the oaken staircase, along the 
 corridors, where shadows chase the shadows and 
 ghosts lurk in the folds of priceless tapestry. 
 Knights that once rode with the chivalry of 
 Europe against the Saracen frown from embra- 
 sures of massive gilding, and dames, surprised, 
 look modestly out from the dark panels upon the 
 daring intruder who has groped his way thither 
 from the strange world of a later century. The 
 statuary, the armour, the tapestries, the paintings 
 tell silently and grimly the history of England, 
 and many a page, too, of the romance of immortal 
 Norman and Plantagenet, of bold Lancastrian and 
 crafty Tudor. Memorials, too, are here of a dif- 
 ferent breed the Stuarts. Here is a portrait of 
 young Prince Henry, Anne's grand-uncle, snatched 
 away at the dawn of manhood, gallant, fair, and 
 wise, as youth with eager blood and mettlesome 
 spirit may ever be. There are eyes peering from 
 out a life-size canvas, chilling one's blood with 
 their ineffable wistfulness. They enchant in the 
 midst of enchantment, for there is sorcery in the 
 very name of Mary of Scotland ! 
 
 Ah ! Here is the antechamber we seek, a 
 lighted taper throwing into bizarre relief, like 
 a portrait of Rembrandt, the figure of a gentle- 
 woman-in-waiting ; and there, beyond, with the 
 
 142
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 shadows piled behind her, blending with the rich 
 tapestries and furniture of oak and ebony, sits a 
 young matron, her destiny written on her pensive 
 brow. It is the Princess Anne herself, pouring 
 forth at her writing-table the secrets of her soul, 
 the secrets that now are secrets no longer, for 
 blazoned to the world we read them as history, 
 and know the writer for what she really was 
 know her as the gentlewoman dozing in the 
 adjacent gallery never knew her, though she 
 looked into her eyes from day to day, and waited 
 on her night after night, when these outpourings 
 of a princess's heart were fermenting in the busy 
 brain which kept her from her couch. Little did 
 Anne opine that these letters, so laboriously 
 conned over and penned with such regal con- 
 tempt for syntax and spelling, should be pre- 
 served to establish her place a sorry place in 
 the Pantheon of Queens. They reveal the Prin- 
 cess's soul more truly than ever did the confessions 
 of an Augustine, those of a great sinner and saint, 
 or the diary of an a Kempis, the daily thoughts 
 of a monk who learned to be a seer in the solitude 
 of a convent garden. For mortal man or woman 
 is neither all shining perfection nor great sins. 
 The fabric of human nature is woven of in- 
 finitesimal faults and infinitesimal virtues, and 
 in Anne Stuart they were woven into a texture 
 wondrous fine, so fine indeed that the pattern 
 
 143
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 would often lack either colour or form were her 
 letters not there to light up all the threads elusive 
 but precious. Becoming accustomed to the dim 
 light, one might with an effort of imagination 
 discern the arrangement of the Princess's draw- 
 ing-room, and with eyes touched with the magic 
 glamour of this night give form to the shadows, 
 while Anne, alternately thinking and writing, 
 laboriously plods on with her letter. 
 
 Italian cabinets of exquisite design, carved with 
 superlative artistry, are filled with treasures of 
 every land, curios from near and far accumulated 
 by her Royal ancestors. Tapestries from the 
 finest looms of France and the East adorn the 
 walls, and drape the massive frames inset with 
 masterpieces of the famous painters of Italy, 
 Spain, and Holland. There are gorgeous rugs 
 from the Levant, skins from the wilds of Europe 
 and Africa, dainty card-tables of precious wood 
 from the virgin forests of America, ivory statu- 
 ettes, each worth a noble's ransom, rare volumes 
 and prints, gifts from the ambassadors of princes 
 and the grandees of many lands. It was a 
 drawing-room worthy not only of the second 
 lady in Britain: the eyes of Marie The'rese 
 herself, trained to every perfection in art and 
 luxury, might here have rested content. 
 
 Unconscious of the prying eyes that look out 
 upon her from the gloom, Anne writes on. The 
 
 144
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURf 
 
 theme is Lady Sunderland, wife of the bold 
 Robert, and those lines are intended for her 
 sister, the Princess of Orange. But there is no 
 honour in witchcraft. Between the wraith of 
 the Royal lady and the enchanted living secret 
 can there be none. Peer over the graceful 
 shoulder where the light falls upon the pages. 
 It is the hour of judgment. Let Anne reveal 
 her soul : 
 
 " The Lady Sunderland plays the hypocrite 
 more than ever, for she goes to St. Martins 
 church morning and afternoon because there are 
 not people enough to see her at Whitehall chapel, 
 and is half an hour before other people, and half 
 an hour after everybody is gone, at her private 
 devotions. She runs from church to church, and 
 keeps up such a clatter with her devotions that it 
 really turns one's stomach. Sure there never 
 was a couple so well matched as she and her 
 good husband, for she is throughout the greatest 
 jade that ever was ; so is he. ..." 
 
 Anne throws down the pen. Her vocabulary 
 fails her ; or can it be that she has misgivings 
 about her spelling ? Bother spelling I She 
 yawns. Still that word eludes her. Something 
 that, despite magic, sounds like a gentlewoman 
 snoring comes from the antechamber. Anne 
 puckers her brows. Had she been an Elizabeth 
 she would have sworn roundly. But Anne was 
 feminine always, so feminine that she could be 
 
 VOL. I 145 L
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 very vulgar, with the vulgarity of a too motherly 
 charwoman, but never masculine enough to be 
 boisterously profane. Checked but not defeated, 
 Anne took up her pen again. 
 
 " So is he," she repeated aloud to collect the 
 current of her thoughts. Then the pen ploughed 
 forward to the completion of the idea : 
 
 "... The subtlest workingests villain that is 
 on the face of the earth." 
 
 " Subtlest workingests villain 1 " Brave Anne 1 
 The devil take the dictionary ! Why should it 
 not be " workingests " if you wish it so ? Ah, 
 Compton, Bishop of London, at one time of the 
 Life Guards, you it was who taught the Lady 
 Anne to spell 1 Perhaps you did your best with 
 your Royal pupil. Perhaps they spelled so in 
 your regiment. 
 
 The theme relieves Anne's feelings. To her 
 sister she may unburthen herself of things she 
 dare breathe aloud only to Sarah Churchill, and 
 her devoted, stupid, George. With lips com- 
 pressed to a thin, malignant line of red, and 
 brows drawn peevishly together, let her sketch 
 of Lady Sunderland proceed : 
 
 " She is a flattering, dissembling, false woman ; 
 but she has so fawning and endearing a way, 
 that she will deceive anybody at first, and it is 
 not possible to find out all her ways in a little 
 time. She cares not at what rate she lives, but 
 never pays anybody. She will cheat, though it 
 
 146
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 be for a little. Then she has had her gallants, 
 though may be not so many as some ladies here ; 
 and with all these good qualities she is a constant 
 church- worn an, so that to outward appearance one 
 would take her for a saint ; and to hear her talk 
 you would think she were a very good Protestant ; 
 but she is as much one as the other, for it is 
 certain that her lord does nothing without her." 
 
 It is all in primary colours, very spiteful, a 
 little brutal. But one likes it so, because if 
 the portrait is crude it is for that reason all the 
 more expressive of the painter. The touch has 
 no polish. It is the touch of nature. 
 
 One phrase in the letter has a vitriolic air of 
 truth and directness which suggests the influence 
 of the autocrat of the Cockpit. 
 
 " The jade fawns and fawns, but she can't 
 deceive me." One can imagine Sarah Churchill 
 withering with such a retort some meandering 
 effort of Anne's at criticism of Lady Sunder- 
 land. 
 
 " Then she has had her gallants ! " Upon 
 what strange targets do random shots light at 
 times ! For while Anne writes to her sister in 
 Holland, Lady Sunderland too has her corres- 
 pondent at the Court of Orange in the person of 
 one who ever brought to the Princess's House 
 confusion. This was Henry Sidney, British 
 Minister at The Hague, whom years before 
 scandal had coupled with the name of Anne's 
 
 147
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 mother. Now was the circle of Sidney's life 
 cutting across that of the daughter's. 
 
 Henry Sidney, a gay, unprincipled rake, was 
 Lord Sunderland's uncle. Sidney and James 
 had in their youth been companions, and when 
 the Prince married his friend was given a post in 
 his Household. His presumption lost him his 
 office and he was dismissed from Court, but his 
 dismissal did not imply guilt on the part of 
 James's wife. Rather was it a tribute to Sidney's 
 insolence. That he was forgiven later is proved 
 by the fact that he cut a distinguished figure at 
 James's coronation. An untoward incident very 
 nearly marred the ceremony. The Crown was 
 toppling from James's brow when Sidney averted 
 the accident. " It is not the first time," he 
 whispered to the King, "that my family have 
 saved the Crown." 
 
 Better far that Sidney had remained in dis- 
 grace, and that the Crown had rolled round the 
 Abbey sanctuary. But with James it was ever 
 thus. He forgave where justice, not mercy, 
 would have been wisdom. He was implacable, 
 or permitted others to be implacable, where 
 severity was fatal to the Throne. 
 
 Sunderland obtained for his uncle the post of 
 Minister at The Hague. Perhaps he had his own 
 reasons for sending him abroad. According to 
 Barillon, the French Ambassador in London, 
 
 148
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Lady Sunderland carried on with Sidney a 
 commerce de galanterie. From her point of 
 vantage in London she kept her friend apprised 
 of all that passed at Whitehall, while she learned 
 through him how events marched at the Court 
 of Orange, and, better still, had an ally there who 
 in the days to come would be a pilot to safety 
 should the storm burst. 
 
 Charm of personality won for Sidney his 
 success in politics. Manners made him, manners 
 preserved him, they condoned his sins, they con- 
 founded his enemies, they obtained him promo- 
 tion, and supported him on the uncertain pedestal 
 of his dignities. They enabled him to maintain 
 a foremost place in an intrigue where his con- 
 federates were remarkable, above all, for their 
 astuteness and duplicity. His smile was wisdom, 
 his diplomacy was embodied in a caressing tact- 
 fulness which to men made him charming, to 
 women irresistible. " Le beau Sidney " was a 
 synonym for breeding and an epitome of the 
 profligacy of the day, a warning to husbands, 
 a challenge to lovers, a toast for the jovial, a sign 
 for the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. 
 
 Such was the man with whom " the lying jade " 
 of Anne's letter was in correspondence, tunnelling 
 a mine for the ruin of the King. And working 
 parallel with their schemes was Anne herself, 
 Anne, the rogue of rogues, in a palace of roguery. 
 
 149
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 See her still labouring at her pen while White- 
 hall sleeps. Now the theme is the Earl of 
 Sunderland. She writes : 
 
 " I am denied the satisfaction of seeing you, 
 my dearest sister, this spring, though the King 
 gave me leave when I first asked it. I impute 
 this to Lord Sunderland, for the King trusts 
 him with everything, and he, going on so fiercely 
 in the interests of the Papists, is afraid you 
 should be told a true character of him. You 
 may remember I have once before ventured to 
 tell you that I thought Lord Sunderland a very 
 ill man, and I am more confirmed every day in 
 that opinion. Everybody knows how often this 
 man turned backwards and forwards in the late 
 King's time ; and now, to complete all his virtues, 
 he is working with all his might to bring in 
 Popery. He is perpetually with the priests, and 
 stirs up the King to do things faster than I 
 believe he would of himself. This worthy Lord 
 does not go publicly to mass, but hears it 
 privately in a priest's chamber." 
 
 The cream of Anne's droll wrath has to come. 
 The Earl's future tempted her to don the mantle 
 of the prophetess : 
 
 " One thing I forgot to tell you about this 
 noble lord, which is, that it is thought if every- 
 thing does not go here as he would have it, that 
 he will pick a quarrel with the Court, and so 
 retire, and by that means it is possible he may 
 make his court to you." 
 
 And so did it all come to pass. But when the 
 storm burst, and Lord Sunderland rode gaily 
 
 150
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 through it, nobody perhaps was more astonished 
 than the Royal prophetess. 
 
 Before we leave the Cockpit, before the 
 magician withdraws his spell, and the enchant- 
 ment fades into prosaic noonday, Anne must 
 take up her pen once more and write to her 
 sister, this time of a great lady, accomplished, 
 virtuous, loyal, now nearing her martyrdom the 
 Queen. A little distance away, beyond the 
 courts and quadrangles, was Mary of Modena 
 herself, wondering mayhap if the young mistress 
 of the Cockpit really loved her, wondering if, in 
 the storm that was gathering and would soon 
 burst around these palace walls, the hand of 
 Anne would take hers, repaying with priceless 
 sympathy the love which the girl-bride from 
 Italy long ago lavished on the motherless maid. 
 Fond delusion of a good woman's heart ! How 
 vain that hope let Anne's pen tell : 
 
 " The Queen, you must know, is of a very 
 proud and haughty humour, and though she 
 pretends to hate all form and ceremony, one 
 sees that those who make their court that way 
 are very well thought of. She declares always 
 that she loves sincerity and hates flattery ; but 
 when the grossest flattery in the world is said to 
 her she seems extremely well pleased with it. 
 It really is enough to turn one's stomach to hear 
 what things are said to her of that kind, and to 
 see how mightily she is satisfied with it." 
 
 151
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The weary lady throws down her pen and 
 yawns at her huge watch with something of 
 reproof that Time should be such a beggar in 
 chivalry as to side against a lovely princess with- 
 out a party. For party had she none. There 
 was, to be sure, good George, very large and 
 very loyal to her. George could listen, could 
 obey, he could agree, but never by any chance 
 could he be the author of a revolution, never 
 electrify them all with a word of command, or 
 dispel her doubts with a whisper of sage counsel. 
 With dog-like fidelity he was ever at her side, 
 or within call. But her heart cried out, not for 
 a devoted mastiff, but a prince to point the way, 
 and lead her from the morass wherein she was 
 floundering to firm ground. 
 
 Away in his apartments is George, good, 
 solemn, stupid George, happy with his bottle 
 his bright, sparkling king. His blonde face 
 glows with the cheer bestowed by this ambrosia 
 of the gods. What knows he of the tortures of 
 the lady vexing her soul about a thousand things, 
 though her bills were paid by her good father ? 
 He supposed he was a good father as he still sat 
 on the throne. Confound politics ! The liquor 
 was excellent, and Orange be damned 1 Excellent 
 English sentiment that, made to trip off a 
 foreigner's tongue. God bless the King, though 
 he was a Catholic and the wine was .... But 
 
 152
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 no, of course not ; wine was wine, without faith 
 or morals, and stole warm and mellow to the 
 heart of every man born of woman, whether he 
 thanked God for it like a plain Lutheran, or, 
 like a pious Catholic, offered his bouquet of 
 gratitude to the sweet Lady Help of Christians 
 that she might take it to the Throne. 
 
 The sadness of the hour creeps on the Princess. 
 She leans forward until her snowy brow rests on 
 her white hands. The lace ruffles fall backwards 
 from her wrists, revealing alabaster arms from 
 which Praxiteles might have carved his master- 
 pieces. The light, burning low, falls on the 
 bowed and shapely head, and under its fitful 
 beams the rich brown tresses glisten like bur- 
 nished copper quaintly chased. 
 
 Does the cross press upon her stooping 
 shoulders ? One would fain have it so, and 
 imagine that in moments like these was the 
 malice of lighter hours expiated. Conceiving 
 her in this attitude of sorrow, one relents to- 
 wards her, and notwithstanding all the selfish 
 malevolence of her letters, one's sympathies go 
 a-hunting to find for her misdeeds some palliation, 
 for her ingratitude some apology. 
 
 And now the witching hour hastes to its final 
 instant. The dust that lies upon the buried 
 cities of Chaldea calls to the wandering spectre. 
 The empire of the magician is demolished. The 
 
 153
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 spell that cast the glamour of another age upon 
 London is dissolved. The Palace of Whitehall, 
 with all its courts and lanes, its alleys and 
 gardens, its solitary lights, its thousand case- 
 ments, quivers like a castle in the air. Quivering, 
 it melts away, and the stars cease to twinkle on 
 a mirage of necromancy. 
 
 154.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN January 1687 a few lines appeared in the 
 London Gazette that filled with grief and 
 dismay two noblemen, who saw the whole 
 scheme of their lives thrown into confusion by 
 a Royal whim. In clubs and coffee-houses men 
 read with amazement. Here indeed was news : 
 The Hydes had fallen. The Princess Anne's 
 uncles were in disgrace. All over the town 
 nothing else was talked of by the gossips ; while, 
 elated that the King should thus alienate his 
 own kindred, the partisans of Orange dispatched 
 the welcome tidings far and near. 
 
 Where the Hydes had fallen who could hope 
 to stand ? This question, artfully whispered to 
 the anxious, settled their course of action. The 
 open-hearted and simple-minded asked no further 
 proof of the King's intolerance. Plain English- 
 men could forgive the King for being a Catholic. 
 Whether he went to Mass or stayed away 
 hardly mattered to them. It was their way to 
 allow their princes luxuries within reason. A 
 King should be in mischief of some kind ; but 
 
 155
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 so long as honest men minded their business 
 and markets were good the country could not 
 go to perdition because a Catholic gentleman, 
 English to the backbone and ready to shed the 
 last drop of his blood for his motherland, was 
 given a command in the militia or a ship in the 
 navy. But for the King to cast aside old men, 
 and they his brothers-in-law, who had served 
 him loyally all their lives, in sunshine and storm, 
 ran counter to their spirit of fair-play. It was 
 mean. They would not treat their servants so. 
 
 How Robert, Earl of Sunderland, must have 
 relished these comments of plain men ! What 
 fools must they all have appeared King, cour- 
 tiers, and citizens to his lordship ! With their 
 blunt intellects, their point-blank outlook they 
 were children in his hands. 
 
 The downfall of the two Hydes, Lord 
 Rochester and Lord Clarendon, marked the 
 climax to his intrigues for obtaining absolute 
 supremacy in the King's council, and what, 
 they say, was still dearer to his heart, control 
 of the national purse. 
 
 Anne was a witness of this curious drama, in 
 which Sunderland's wits bore down all obstacles. 
 Its ultimate drift was inexplicable to her, for 
 how indeed could she be expected to fathom 
 designs which the Earl himself could hardly 
 plumb? No foresight, however, was needed to 
 
 156
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 enlighten her as to the duty of an affectionate 
 niece when she saw her uncles tottering from 
 the places they had filled so long. But Anne 
 watched impassively the duel between Sunder- 
 land, whom she detested, and Rochester, bound 
 to her by ties of blood and the remembrance of 
 a thousand gentle associations of her childhood. 
 And when the overthrow of Lord Rochester 
 was assured, she sealed her lips upon the fond 
 word which, whispered to the King, might have 
 softened or delayed, if it could not altogether 
 avert, his misfortune. With Rochester driven 
 from power Clarendon could not hope to main- 
 tain his place alone against enemies so formid- 
 able, and he too was lost to the administration. 
 
 Sunderland had early in the reign awakened 
 to the temporal if not to the spiritual advan- 
 tages of the religion of his master. A Protes- 
 tant minister, however astute, could never 
 hope under this regime to be as powerful as a 
 Roman Catholic. Sunderland, however, did not 
 act impetuously. He was far too clever a 
 diplomatist for that. 
 
 He dropped hints opportunely which fostered 
 the King's hopes of seeing his Secretary become 
 a convert. But this Sunderland was in season 
 a fellow fully conscious of the value of his 
 immortal soul. He therefore would not hurry 
 where his eternal salvation was at stake. So 
 
 157
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 good a son must not lightly forsake the shrine 
 of his fathers.; Evidence had to be examined, 
 dogmas proved, history sifted ! 
 
 These things all took time, but meanwhile 
 there was an article of faith which needed little 
 demonstration to Robert's mind. It was that 
 gold is equally precious under all political and 
 theological dispensations. To extricate himself 
 from his embarrassments, therefore, he agreed to 
 sell the secrets of the Cabinet to Louis XIV. 
 for a pension of 4,000 a year. His patrimony 
 was inadequate to meet his losses at the gaming- 
 tables, but this French subsidy helped the 
 gambler to gratify his passion while preserving 
 him from those financial anxieties so fatal to the 
 calm examination of theological problems. Such 
 divergent mental activities might seem in 
 ordinary cases somewhat incompatible, but to 
 Robert's elastic conscience and penetrating mind 
 the excitement of cards paid for with the price 
 of treason, and the study of the catechism of the 
 Council of Trent, were grateful alternatives. 
 
 It was an unfortunate circumstance for 
 Rochester that the Lord Treasurership was the 
 post in the Government which above all others 
 appealed to Sunderland's ambition. Early in 
 James's reign it must have dawned on Rochester 
 that his office was little likely to be a sinecure. 
 Symptoms of unrest were everywhere. New 
 
 158
 
 From a photo by Kinery Walker, after the picture liy Sir Godfrey Kneller in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 LAWRENCE HYDE, EARL OK ROCHESTER, K.G. 
 
 p. 158.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 favourites emerged from the most unexpected 
 quarters, while old ones had to adapt themselves 
 to wholly new circumstances or suffer eclipse. 
 Rochester was one of the first to feel the change, 
 and in a desperate effort to retain his ascendency 
 he fell into a disastrous mistake. 
 
 We have already seen Catharine Sedley, 
 empress of the unfortunate monarch's heart, 
 alienating from him the sympathy of chivalrous 
 men by holding up to public contempt the 
 contrast between his religious professions and 
 the slavery of a vicious attachment. Rochester 
 endeavoured to please his Sovereign by patron- 
 ising Catharine. To a man who had learned his 
 manners at the Court of Charles II. there was 
 nothing repellent in such a friendship. But now 
 everything was different. The King was a sinner 
 who would be a saint, and the Queen, deeply 
 religious and tenderly attached to her husband, 
 was wounded to the quick by the baseness which 
 would coolly pilfer from her her lord's affections 
 for the sake of a passing political advantage. 
 
 Lady Rochester's part as ally of her husband 
 was, it is averred, one of singular infamy. She, 
 it is said, appeared on the scene to direct the 
 jealousy of the Queen against a young and inno- 
 cent girl. But happily the true state of affairs 
 was revealed in time, and Mary of Modena knew 
 Rochester for what he really was a crafty man 
 
 159
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 with high intelligence of a certain order, but 
 with a nature devoid of one true spark of 
 spirituality. He had many of the common-place 
 virtues and some of the common-place vices. 
 But these were not adequate to sustain him in 
 the crisis with which he was soon to be con- 
 fronted, a crisis which Rochester imagined would 
 never arise, fervently counting, no doubt, on being 
 preserved from it by his kinship to the King, 
 and, above all, through the influence of his fair 
 relative at the Cockpit. 
 
 Anne would one day be Queen. Her religion 
 was that of her uncles. Other families might 
 find a change of creed advantageous ; but the 
 Hydes were in a sense a distinct branch of the 
 Royal Family, with Anne at its head. Protestant 
 it would remain. 
 
 This sentiment was no doubt suspected by 
 Sunderland. Perhaps, indeed, he had more 
 substantial grounds than suspicion for giving 
 Rochester credit for a certain stubborn devotion 
 to the faith in which he was reared. The Lord 
 Treasurer paid assiduous court to the bottle. 
 He once became so drunk at an aldermanic 
 banquet that he stripped himself almost stark 
 naked and wanted to climb up a sign-post to 
 drink the King's health. In such moments of 
 exhilaration Rochester's prudence would natu- 
 rally desert him, and his heart would be worn on 
 
 160
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 his sleeve for examination by the curious. A 
 thoroughly Protestant heart they found it to be. 
 
 Sunderland artfully suggested to James that 
 Rochester was in some doubt as to points in 
 dispute between Catholics and Protestants. 
 James heard with the gullibility which made 
 him so easy a dupe to the crudest deceit, that 
 this pious wine-bibber was in spiritual distress. 
 One can hear Charles II.'s hearty laughter 
 ringing through Whitehall at being told such a 
 story. But James had lost any sense of humour 
 he had ever possessed. Few rakes turned saint 
 can carry the aureole with such grace as to 
 preserve their keen sense of the ridiculous un- 
 blunted, and James, unfortunately for himself, 
 was not one of the rare exceptions. 
 
 Angels must have wept with mirth when the 
 King, taking Rochester into his closet, confided 
 to him that he shared his dark, perplexing secret. 
 Rochester's eyes opened wide. His face, habitu- 
 ally tinted to a generous glow by long devotion 
 to the decanter, looked as if it would burst. 
 Had one of them lost their wits ? If so, which ? 
 Ah ! that treacherous extra bottle of the previous 
 night. Or was it bottles ? Faithless wine ! 
 Poor Rochester ! One can see him pressing his 
 hands to his head to collect his wits, at which 
 the King pities him, crediting him with sublime 
 perturbation of soul. 
 
 VOL. I 161 M
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 " Dear Rochester, Rome is the Rock. On it 
 stands the lighthouse which has braved the 
 storms of nigh two thousand years. . . . ! " 
 
 " A lighthouse ! " It was indeed the very 
 thing the Treasurer wanted. With farcical 
 amiability he fell in with James's temper. He 
 confessed his spirit was riven between the charms 
 of Rome and Canterbury. But through un- 
 suspected windows of his soul strange illuminants 
 were shining. The King was enraptured. He 
 ordered a disputation to set his brother-in-law's 
 doubts at rest. Rochester had not the art of 
 travelling as slowly as Sunderland. He was not 
 a diplomatist. Soon all the cards were on the 
 table, and James saw that the Lord Treasurer, 
 greedy of power, greedy of self-indulgence, the 
 most unlikely looking martyr in all England, 
 would probably go to the scaffold before deserting 
 his faith. 
 
 James was deeply chagrined. Rochester, as a 
 searcher after truth, was a miserable failure, and 
 the King who could believe in him a laughing- 
 stock. Rochester should go. James shed tears 
 at parting from his old friend. But the Minister 
 had become suddenly possessed with a dogged 
 spirit of independence, while the King on his 
 side was obdurate. And then it was that the 
 Gazette announced that the Treasurership had 
 been put into commission. Rochester was de- 
 
 162
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 posed, and Clarendon was deprived of the Lord- 
 Lieutenancy of Ireland. 
 
 Now were the prizes coveted by the Secret 
 Committee within their grasp. The door to the 
 Lord Treasurership was open to Sunderland. 
 The Lord-Lieutenancy was vacant for Tyrconnel, 
 and the handsome head of Frances Jennings was 
 already giddy with visions of the semi-regal 
 pomp of Dublin Castle. An envoy had gone to 
 Rome who would crave a cardinal's hat for 
 Petre, and there remained only Jermyn for whom 
 the King should find an avenue to reward. 
 
 The symmetry of the scheme so elaborately 
 mapped out by the Secret Committee was spoiled 
 by the King. Sunderland was ready to act as 
 warder of the coffers of the realm. Who so 
 worthy as Sunderland ? Who could make gold 
 go so far or so quickly ? This embryo Treasurer 
 had innumerable qualifications for the highest 
 trust in the kingdom. But likewise he had one 
 disqualification that to the economical mind of 
 James was insurmountable. He was a spend- 
 thrift. To have grossly mismanaged his own 
 affairs was no recommendation to the Sovereign 
 in a guardian of the national purse ; and so, 
 when the prize was at his very hand, when all his 
 complex schemes had beautifully matured and 
 reached the destined conclusion of a mathe- 
 matical problem, when he had seemingly achieved 
 
 163
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 a brilliant victory, Sunderland had in reality lost 
 everything, and he was left to eat his heart out 
 with disappointment another Tantalus. 
 
 Jermyn was provided for with a seat on the 
 new Treasury Commission. The renowned dandy 
 was thus obliged to forgo, with the best grace 
 he could, his ambition of becoming Captain of 
 the Lifeguards for a post in which the wits hoped 
 he would keep the King's money with better 
 success than he had done his own an allusion 
 to the inheritance he had dissipated in gambling. 
 
 The cardinal's hat for which James had sent 
 his Ambassador to Rome was destined never to 
 arrive for Petre. The Pope considered James's 
 policy wanting in good sense, and was not dis- 
 posed to extend special marks of favour to a 
 priest whose prudence was sadly inadequate to the 
 delicate responsibilities into which he had drifted. 
 The only member of the Secret Committee, in- 
 deed, who realised his ambition was Tyrconnel. 
 
 When Clarendon fell Tyrconnel's hour had 
 come. Sunderland, thwarted in his own designs, 
 behaved towards his confederate with character- 
 istic disloyalty. He recoiled from the fulfilment 
 of his compact. The Lord-Lieutenancy for 
 Tyrconnel ! Preposterous ! It was a post for a 
 nobleman with a distinguished record, or at 
 least for the head of some house whose pedigree 
 conferred indisputable priority. Sunderland ex- 
 
 164
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 amined Talbot's claims by this nice standard, 
 and found that they failed in a lamentable 
 degree to satisfy his new-born scruples. The 
 great Roman Catholic nobles of England had 
 their man for the post in the person of Powis, a 
 lord of ancient lineage and courtly manners. 
 What right had Dick Talbot to contest such 
 respectable and conventional pretensions ? But 
 Talbot did. He cared as little for respectability 
 personified by a Powis as he did for convention 
 personified by such a sham as Sunderland. The 
 Earl of Tyrconnel approached the Earl of 
 Sunderland with wide-open purse. It was a 
 meeting of gods of a kind. One can picture the 
 pair, fire in the eyes of one, the other growing 
 more suave the more closely he was pressed. 
 
 " Fifty thousand pounds, my Lord President," 
 said Tyrconnel. ' " Fifty thousand pounds the day 
 I am gazetted his Majesty's viceroy in Ireland ! " 
 
 " There are difficulties, my lord," urged Sun- 
 derland, almost pleadingly. 
 
 " What are they ? " retorted Tyrconnel. 
 
 Sunderland hesitated, as well he might. He 
 must have seen that the country was drifting fast 
 towards revolution, and Talbot was the least 
 desirable of associates at such a time for one who 
 hoped to be on the winning side, whatever might 
 happen, at whatever cost of pride and name. But 
 the motives inspired by such a thought, though 
 
 165
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 conclusive to his own mind, against Tyrconnel's 
 claims were the very last he dare mention to this 
 blustering and indomitable fellow, whom he had 
 no desire to meet as an avowed and deadly foe. 
 
 Still Talbot would not be denied. He had 
 fought and lost fought and lost too often to 
 miss the fruits of victory when the battle was 
 his own. He had one quality which Sunderland 
 with all his marvellous brilliancy lacked. He 
 had the strength to push home a success. 
 
 Goodness knows what the Queen thought of 
 Talbot, but Her Majesty had some reason to 
 admire Lady Tyrconnel, for in days gone by she 
 had resisted temptation personified in James. 
 The influence of Mary Beatrice was now invoked 
 on behalf of the husband of the virtuous Frances. 
 There is a story of a magnificent chain and 
 pearls, which had been presented by Prince 
 Rupert many years before to Margaret Hughes, 
 having been purchased by Talbot for the Queen. 
 They were valued at ten thousand pounds. 
 Probably not a word of truth was contained in 
 the story. Not but that Mary might have 
 accepted from Talbot a gift which, in splendour 
 at least, was worthy of a queen. 
 
 He was her husband's lifelong friend, a fearless 
 supporter of his policy, the man who was to 
 make Ireland a stronghold of loyalty. His 
 wealth, too, was enormous, and his rank con- 
 
 166
 
 From an engraving, after the picture in the cullevtiun of Loril Ueaulieu. 
 DICK TALBOT, DUKE OF TYRCONXEL. 
 
 p. 166.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 siderable. Moreover, Mary could accept with 
 honour a gift which a poorer princess should 
 reject or receive only by appearing to sacrifice 
 her pride to the gratification of possession. 
 For James was so rich that he could afford to in- 
 dulge his Queen with all the jewels her heart 
 could desire. 
 
 It was not pearls, therefore, that secured to 
 Tyrconnel his viceregal throne. The King 
 believed in him as he believed in no other man 
 amongst his courtiers and friends. He felt that 
 he was irresistible in his own land, and, desirous 
 of strengthening the Crown in Ireland the more 
 it was assailed in England, he resolved to make 
 Tyrconnel his representative in Dublin. And 
 he did. The Royal command settled the wrangle. 
 It allayed Sunderland's scruples. It silenced the 
 pretensions of Powis. Sunderland, Jermyn, and 
 Petre had to submit to disappointment in their 
 respective ambitions. Against one the Treasury 
 was barred. The captaincy for which another 
 craved eluded him. And the red hat that was 
 to make the Churchman happy never left the 
 Papal palace. But Tyrconnel, more fortunate in 
 his aspirations, to the consternation of the Prince 
 of Orange and his partisans, was sent to rule 
 over Ireland, though with a title rather less 
 high-sounding than Lord-Lieutenant. He was 
 Earl of Tyrconnel, the King's Lord Deputy. 
 
 167
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ChurchiUs going over to Rome ! " 
 -*- The day William of Orange heard that 
 rumour the Court at The Hague, never a cheerful 
 place, must have become more than ever a slough 
 of despond. The Prince could always take an 
 additional dram of the fiery liquor of his native 
 land to sustain his fortitude. But the unfortunate 
 Princess had no such consolation. She could 
 only fly to hide herself in her own apartments 
 from the thunder she dreaded to see upon her 
 husband's brow. 
 
 So great was the commotion caused at The 
 Hague by this report that the Princess Mary 
 at once wrote to the Cockpit on the subject. 
 Unhappily the letter is lost. But one may infer 
 the contents from Anne's spirited defence of her 
 favourite. She wrote to Mary in March 1688 : 
 
 " Sorry people have taken such pains to give 
 so ill a character of [Lady] Churchill. I believe 
 there is nobody in, the world has better notions 
 of religion than she has. It is true that she is 
 not so strict as some are, nor does she keep such 
 
 168
 
 a bustle with religion, which I confess I think is 
 never the worse, for one sees so many saints mere 
 devils, that if one be a good Christian, the less 
 show one makes the better, in my opinion. Then, 
 as for moral principles, 'tis impossible to have 
 better, and without, all that lifting up of the 
 hands and eyes, and often going to church, will 
 prove but a very lame devotion. One thing 
 more I must say for her, which is, that she has 
 a true sense of the doctrine of our Church, and 
 abhors all the principles of the Church of Rome ; 
 so, as to this particular, I assure you she will 
 never change. The same thing I will venture, 
 now I am on the subject, for her lord ; for though 
 he is a very faithful servant to King James, and 
 the King is very kind to him, and I believe he 
 will always obey the King in all things that are 
 consistent with religion, yet rather than change 
 that, I dare say he will lose all places, and 
 everything that he has." 
 
 The basis for the story that Sarah contemplated 
 changing her religion is not very apparent ; but it 
 is easy to imagine that during the spring of 1688 
 questions of dogma filled an extraordinary place 
 in Court life. Of old it was a masque or a dance, 
 a flirtation or a morsel of scandal which agitated 
 Whitehall. Now points of doctrine were can- 
 vassed with more eagerness than at a mediaeval 
 university, the great majority of the casuists 
 bringing to the disputes a most comprehensive 
 ignorance of history. Where contentions raged 
 Sarah Churchill was little likely to suppress her 
 
 169
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 feelings, if they could be given free rein with any 
 reasonable degree of safety. But with the fate 
 of Rochester and Clarendon before her eyes, 
 discretion would at this season recommend itself 
 strongly to her. James, it is true, can hardly 
 have realised how absolutely she dominated his 
 daughter's household. Her official position in 
 the Court was so entirely a secondary one that it 
 protected her from the attentions bestowed upon 
 the faith of persons of more consequence in the 
 table of precedence. But even had the King 
 realised the power exercised at the Cockpit by 
 Sarah he would hardly have taken steps to 
 eliminate from the tangle of his affairs a factor 
 which he would naturally assume to be favour- 
 able. James counted with complete confidence 
 on Anne's loyalty. Trusting his daughter fully, 
 he trusted her household, and on none of his 
 servants would he be disposed to rely more 
 implicitly than on the Churchills. 
 
 Sarah's sister was in Dublin representing the 
 Queen ; her sister-in-law, Arabella Churchill, was 
 the mother of children very dear to the King. 
 His Majesty was kind to Lord Churchill. Anne 
 herself had said so in her reply just quoted to the 
 Princess of Orange. Putting their clever heads 
 together, this couple may well have asked them- 
 selves at this juncture what they had to gain by 
 turning renegade to a Sovereign who watched 
 
 170
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 over their advancement as though they were his 
 own children. 
 
 As they saw the time draw near for the 
 inevitable parting of the ways, it was with 
 profound anxiety they debated their policy. As 
 in the case of almost all those around them, self- 
 interest was their main guide. That the rule 
 of James ensured them brilliant prospects was 
 plain to intelligences so acute. But their course 
 of action had to be modified by the growing 
 unpopularity of the King. It was necessary to 
 please His Majesty, for he was the lord in posses- 
 sion, while the Prince over the water might never, 
 after all, succeed in ousting him. In the effort 
 to steer both ways at once the Churchills seem 
 to have exposed themselves in some way to 
 the suspicion that they were prepared to follow the 
 example of the courtiers who had deserted the 
 Established Church. And this suspicion was 
 wafted over the water to Holland, arousing the 
 ire of William and the uneasiness of his wife. 
 
 Nor was Anne's course more clearly defined 
 for her than the Churchills for them when once 
 she closed her ears to the clarion notes of immut- 
 able justice. Like the Churchills, she had to 
 think of what would please the King, and what 
 would conciliate her brother-in-law. The King 
 might weather the storm. True, the breakers 
 were thundering on the shore with deafening 
 
 171
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 wrath. Wherever he turned the sky met him 
 heavy with anger, dark as pitch, disaster in the 
 furry blackness of the lowering abyss. But 
 the Princess in her short life had seen enough 
 to know that nothing is harder to lose than a 
 kingdom, and nothing more easily held than the 
 loyalty of Englishmen. This loyalty had given 
 James his throne, in spite of an agitation that 
 knew no scruples. And the same loyalty would 
 in all probability support him through every trial 
 and difficulty, even against himself, just as it had 
 given of its best blood in rivers and stopped only 
 at miracles in a last desperate struggle to save 
 his father. This was what might be expected 
 from the simple-hearted loyalty of simple English 
 people as opposed to the courtly trimming and 
 secret treason of the Sunderlands and Sydneys. 
 And if the King should win ! If he should carry 
 through successfully the policy in which opposi- 
 tion only made him more stubborn ! Anne had 
 to contemplate such a contingency from day to 
 day, and play the double part of a loyal daughter 
 and a zealous conspirator. 
 
 Here was a mental strain from which over a 
 long period the Princess had no relief, and which 
 was exhausting enough to wear a woman of finer 
 nerves into her grave. Anne's letters only give 
 us half her history for this period the half in 
 which she courted Orange. Her other part, that 
 
 172
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 of the dutiful child of the King, called for no 
 letters. Her pen had to dissimulate but an hour 
 now and an hour again, and then she was alone 
 to collect her thoughts and throw all her mind 
 into effecting her purpose. But the larger part 
 of her life was lived in the light of the Court. 
 She was continually the King's companion ; and 
 apart from all other eyes, remote from every ear, 
 these two spoke together, long and earnestly. 
 
 At such moments what subjects would rise to 
 the lips of the King but those nearest his heart ? 
 To his idolised Anne he would breathe his 
 suspicions of Orange. To her he would whisper 
 words that to no other would ever pass his lips 
 his hopes for the future, his anxieties about the 
 succession. With voice broken with emotion he 
 would paint the joy to him if he could but know 
 that some day when his work was done . . . over 
 Catholic England would reign the good Queen 
 Anne . . . Anne . . . the Catholic. . . . And the 
 noonday sun would remind the Queen at White- 
 hall, the magistrates in the courts, the citizens in 
 their shops, the labourers in the fields, of the 
 Angelus, and as in mediaeval days the whole nation 
 would pause a moment in the round of common- 
 place toil, and, turning in spirit to the Holy City, 
 recite the sacred drama of the Annunciation. 
 
 To hear the King in his moments of exaltation 
 reveal his most cherished dreams was an ordeal 
 
 173
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 very different from that involved in composing 
 letters to her sister which would flatter her 
 husband's ambitions. Perhaps she too, like the 
 Churchills, in trying to steer both ways at once 
 gave some colour to the suspicion that she could 
 at least tolerate a Catholic favourite in the person 
 of her devoted Sarah. 
 
 Whether it was that the rumour had no 
 foundation, or that the swift challenge which 
 Mary of Orange hurled across the North Sea the 
 moment it reached The Hague, allayed Sarah's 
 misgivings on the subject of religion ; certain it 
 is that no more is heard of the matter. 
 
 Some day, when the treasures of the Vatican 
 archives relating to this period have been 
 thoroughly explored, a connection may be found 
 between these mysterious rumours concerning 
 the Churchills and one of the most inexplicable 
 episodes in the history of Anne. It is an episode 
 which belongs to the period immediately follow- 
 ing her accession ; but if the mystery is ever 
 unravelled its explanation may perhaps be traced 
 to the secret history of those months which 
 preceded the Revolution when everything was 
 possible, and Anne, from motives of ambition or 
 prudence, may have taken half a step towards 
 Catholicism, which was at the time carefully 
 concealed, and all trace of which was afterwards 
 diligently obliterated. 
 
 174
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The kernel of the mystery is preserved in the 
 State Paper Office in the form of an affectionate 
 letter to the Queen from the Pope. In it his 
 Holiness addresses Anne as one of his flock. If 
 she was at any time received into the Catholic 
 Church there is doubtless some record of her con- 
 version in the Roman archives which has never 
 yet seen the light. Strange as it seems that so 
 important a reference, if it exists, should have 
 escaped research, it would be stranger still if the 
 Pontiff credited the Queen in paternal terms 
 with holding a faith to which she had never given 
 her adherence. The solution has been suggested 
 that because Anne celebrated the office of touch- 
 ing for the evil according to the Latin formula, 
 the Pope for this reason claimed her as a Roman 
 Catholic. The office, it is pointed out, contains 
 invocations to the Virgin Mary not in harmony 
 with the Anglican system. The solution is 
 altogether unsatisfying, because the doctrine of 
 the invocation of saints is only a minor point of 
 difference between the two communions. One 
 may be pardoned therefore for imagining some 
 other explanation more closely allied to human 
 emotions, more akin to the clash of contending 
 interests, which have given to the intriguing 
 Cockpit its romantic glamour. 
 
 Anne's defence of Sarah from the attack made 
 upon her by Mary of Orange was full of unex- 
 
 175
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 pected spirit, so unexpected that it almost looked 
 as if she scarcely feared a quarrel with her sister. 
 Such a mood would be in harmony with a certain 
 impatience of the Orange alliance, or a doubt that 
 in the coming crisis her brother-in-law could 
 prevail against the King, and that she might 
 safely set a limit to the sacrifices of dignity and 
 loyalty to be made on his behalf. It was at this 
 time that the King's temper hardened to the true 
 spirit of the Stuart autocrat. He became now to 
 his finger-tips his father's son, determined, like a 
 gambler, to take every hazard rather than stand 
 to win any but the supreme stake. And Anne, 
 meeting such a prince every day, spending hours 
 in his company, had to keep a watch upon her 
 every word and look. A smile, a glance, a lifting 
 of the eyebrow might have betrayed the dark 
 background of her thoughts. A braver spirit 
 than hers, inspired by a cause more honest, might 
 be excused for growing weary of such a long- 
 sustained effort to maintain a poise so delicate. 
 And, sick to death of the life she was leading, she 
 may have welcomed some sign that the King's 
 policy was triumphing, not for love of him, but 
 just as a man condemned to die hails as a relief 
 the bitter end which reprieves him from the 
 infinite tortures of a distracted mind. 
 
 Looking back now on that spring of 1688 one 
 sees clearly enough whither James was drifting. 
 
 176
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 But one is apt to forget that his contemporaries 
 were denied an equally distinct vision of the 
 direction of the tide, and to lose sight of the 
 multitudinous anxieties of those whose lives and 
 fortunes trembled in the balance. 
 
 Far from the course of history presenting an 
 unobstructed view, far from the final settlement 
 being the inevitable deduction from a cut-and- 
 dried set of factors, the reverse was the case, and 
 the most profound seer amongst them all had no 
 certainty as to the ultimate issue of a strife which 
 in the end seemed to be decided by a whim of 
 the gods. 
 
 The extreme partisans were ready to take any 
 risks, but prudent men of shrewd judgment and 
 long experience were not only doubtful as to the 
 issue before the crisis came, but were equally a 
 prey to uncertainty when the hour arrived for 
 decisive action. Godolphin, most cautious of 
 statesmen, bred up at Court, familiar with all 
 the opposing characters in the conflict, demon- 
 strated his discretion by his profound reserve. 
 Godolphin was the man of illimitable common 
 sense. Anne would watch his every move, 
 striving to learn something of the devious ways 
 to fortune when every face was a mask, and 
 every path was mined and cross-mined with 
 tunnels leading to Heaven alone knew where. 
 But from Godolphin she could learn nothing. 
 
 VOL. I 177 N
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 They said he worshipped the Queen, to whom he 
 was chamberlain. The beautiful Blague, the lily 
 amongst the flaunting passion-flowers of the 
 masque of long ago, was dead, and the bereaved 
 courtier found, no doubt, some romantic pleasure 
 in serving a lady as stainless as the departed 
 Margaret. But this old-world sentiment, so 
 congenial to one of an ancient Celtic race, did not 
 exclude a wary regard for the future in the shape 
 of a vague understanding with Orange, and which, 
 were she to know of it, would do no more than 
 confirm Anne's perplexity. 
 
 Turning from the immediate circle at White- 
 hall to the wider and more representative arena 
 of politics, Anne could not fail to be impressed 
 by the reticence of the most brilliant leader in 
 Parliament. Halifax was the most accomplished 
 politician of the day. He had in the past 
 achieved great things, and now that great things 
 were expected, men looked to him to light the 
 torch and lead the way. But Halifax was the 
 Prince of Trimmers, and when one of intellect so 
 commanding temporised, who would be surprised 
 at doubt and hesitation on the part of a woman 
 who should always find her strength in others ? 
 It was not that he was on occasion wanting in 
 courage. It was Halifax who, by his eloquence 
 and enthusiasm, had defeated in days gone by the 
 attempt to exclude James from the Throne on 
 
 178
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 account of his religion. But for Halifax, James 
 perhaps would never have grasped the sceptre, 
 and but for the King's want of sagacity in dis- 
 missing Halifax there might never have been a 
 Revolution. 
 
 Halifax was, within certain limits, an oppor- 
 tunist. But this opportunism, so convenient and 
 indispensable in secondary affairs, had to yield to 
 immovable obstinacy in matters which he was 
 pleased to regard as of prime importance. At 
 the death of Charles II. he was Lord Privy Seal. 
 He surrendered the Privy Seal to become Lord 
 President of the Council. Halifax, however, 
 soon discovered that his new dignities were void 
 of substantial power, and that his voice in the 
 government was as futile as the soundless cries 
 of a nightmare. At first the proud noble could 
 hardly realise that he who had deserved so well 
 was in reality, if not in theory, set aside in favour 
 of men who could boast few of his qualifications 
 for the service of the Crown. 
 
 Halifax, the champion of legitimacy, the man 
 who had defeated the Exclusion Bill, and aroused, 
 almost single-handed, the latent loyalty of Parlia- 
 ment and the country in James's defence, saw a 
 gambler in all things like the reckless and versa- 
 tile Sunderland preferred before him in the 
 councils of the Sovereign. This King-maker, 
 proud as his prototype, could not brook this 
 
 179
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 humiliation, and with the same deadly efficacy 
 formerly employed for James he now combated 
 the measures on which the monarch had set his 
 heart. Halifax was a man of great weight in 
 the government from the point of view of a King 
 bent upon adventures which would arouse wide- 
 spread hostility and suspicion. His pre-eminent 
 ability was unquestioned. He represented the 
 cast of mind which was accepted as the standard 
 sense of proportion by the thinking elements of 
 the nation. His mind was free from what a 
 people always a little impatient of the Church 
 would call the ecclesiastical taint ; if by breed- 
 ing he was a cavalier, he was also an apostle 
 of free speech ; if his life was not exemplary, 
 it was at all events orderly and dignified. 
 He was too wise to be a rake and a coxcomb, 
 and too much a man of the world to be ac- 
 counted inferior to either in any society, how- 
 ever frivolous. 
 
 Brilliant as his brother-in-law, Sunderland, his 
 suave, easy nature mantled sterner stuff than any 
 which entered into the grain of Robert's un- 
 principled nature. On the question of the Test 
 Act Halifax threw down the gage of battle to the 
 King, and was dismissed from his office for his 
 hardihood. Yet this man, who might be pardoned 
 for evincing hostility which the King had courted, 
 manifested during these eventful months of the 
 
 180
 
 spring of 1688 no desire to overthrow James. 
 On the contrary, having made some allowance for 
 his natural desire to enjoy the goodwill of the 
 Prince of Orange, his conduct does not augur 
 very complete confidence in the hopes of 
 William's more zealous supporters. He had too 
 much to lose to take sides lightly. 
 
 Like him, Anne had much to lose, had more 
 to lose, indeed, than the whole array of conspir- 
 ators and trimmers marshalled together. And 
 in proportion to the huge stake she had to hazard, 
 was her distress. When at length she had to 
 make her choice and enroll herself finally under 
 the banner of her father's enemy, her hand did 
 not pen the vow of treachery. Churchill it was 
 who, in a fine frenzy of devotion to all holy things, 
 as so consecrated by the High Priestess, Sarah, 
 and himself, pledged to the Prince of Orange 
 Anne's resolve to lose her life before being guilty 
 of apostasy. The pledge was, under any circum- 
 stances, a safe one for Anne. Little likely was 
 she to lose anything while her father was King 
 of England. Rather more heroic was Churchill's 
 vow for himself that he would lose all his places 
 before changing his faith. But alas for Jack's 
 sense of humour ! The great soldier was no 
 artist, and with one stroke of the pen he marred 
 the touching picture of a broken soldier going 
 forth, having lost all for his faith, to court fortune 
 
 181
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 at the sword's point over the seas. Why should 
 he be prepared to lose only his places? Why 
 not a more sublime flight of fancy? And the 
 pen stumbling along its uncertain course pro- 
 claimed that the gallant Churchill would, if the 
 need arose, shed the last drop of his blood for the 
 tenets he revered. 
 
 182
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " T A, the King ! " 
 
 L^ " Heavens, madam, the King ! " 
 
 Anne started to her feet to salute the Sovereign. 
 
 The King it was, and the ladies who had cried 
 out in their surprise and confusion had just time 
 to rush pell-mell into a closet, where they huddled 
 together, holding their breaths, leaving all alone in 
 her chamber their mistress, the Princess Anne. 
 
 The imperious dames who, forgetting their 
 accustomed dignity, raced like schoolgirls to 
 cover, were Lady Churchill and Lady Fitz- 
 harding. The King's guards could not detain 
 their ladyships this morning to pay their respects 
 to their liege. Rumpled silks and torn laces and 
 touzled locks even powder and patches brushed 
 off in the scrimmage were small misfortunes in 
 comparison with a meeting, face to face, with the 
 King under the circumstances which they were 
 aware brought him to the Cockpit. 
 
 Curtseying low before him, the King may well 
 have noted that the Princess's lips were bloodless, 
 that her hands trembled, that she drew herself up 
 
 183
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 slowly, as though her limbs had suddenly grown 
 leaden. She scarcely raised her eyes to her father's 
 face, but demurely hung her head. If she was not 
 really ashamed she was, perhaps, a little afraid. 
 
 Tenderly did the King take the young matron's 
 hands in his and kiss her lovingly. She was in- 
 expressibly dear to him, this winsome lady with 
 the rich glossy hair of chestnut-brown. She was 
 the last link left him with the romance of his 
 youth, now that a husband who was almost his 
 open foe had robbed him of his Mary. There 
 were tears in Anne's eyes. Like the spoiled 
 child she was, she could almost blame the King 
 or any one for the distress born of her folly. 
 
 The Princess was in debt. At another time 
 this might have been the most venial sin by which 
 a Stuart could offend. But James was at once 
 rigid and liberal in the regulation of money 
 matters. His code of finance was simple and 
 straightforward enough to satisfy the most honest 
 tradesman in the City. " Live within your means, 
 and pay as you go," was his rule. This golden 
 maxim, borrowed from the ideal bourgeois home, 
 governed the Palace, and if she would please him 
 his daughter should not depart from it at the 
 Cockpit. 
 
 But Anne had no reverence for golden precepts, 
 and for this one least of all. Gold was made to 
 spend ; and not only did they spend it at the 
 
 184
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Cockpit, it seemed as if they used to melt it there. 
 Hence James's saunter across Whitehall Gardens 
 this morning, saluting gallant and dame, serving- 
 man and serving-maid as he went, for all were 
 welcome to come and go here, and hob-nob with 
 the monarch in his pleasure grounds. Not all the 
 salutes were, however, courteously acknowledged 
 to-day as the beaux swaggered past, courting the 
 Sovereign's notice with sweeping bows. Wasted 
 were the blushes of the damsels hastening to keep 
 their tryst at Rosamond's Pond in St. James's 
 Park, the sanctuary where love-vows were ex- 
 changed, for the King was blind for the nonce to 
 coquetry, though usually there was cheer in his 
 eye for the comedy of life's springtime as played 
 in the glades close by his threshold. 
 
 His Majesty's air was preoccupied, his step was 
 spiritless. On his brow there was a cloud. He 
 had just received a plaintive appeal from Anne, 
 and in person he was going to answer it. She 
 wanted money, a great deal of money, to satisfy 
 her creditors. 
 
 Anne's income from her father was 32,000 
 a year, a sum of enormous value in those days, 
 when luxuries, if costly, were few, while all the 
 ordinary needs of life were inexpensive. Yet 
 with this more than Royal revenue Anne was 
 heavily embarrassed, her expenditure being 7,000 
 in excess of her income. 
 
 185
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The eavesdroppers who had been in such haste 
 to leave Anne alone to bear the King's displeasure 
 scarcely breathed. Curiosity had got the better 
 of their fears. They wanted to feast on every 
 word of this Royal encounter. No syllable would 
 they willingly lose. They pressed their hands 
 upon their bosoms to still the noisy panting of 
 their hearts, quickened to tumult by their dash to 
 hiding. But so gently did he chide this foolish 
 young matron that there reached their straining 
 ears only broken phrases like these : 
 
 "A noble allowance. . . . Twice cheerfully 
 have I paid your debts ... no word of remon- 
 strance. ..." 
 
 There was silence in the chamber. The pri- 
 soners in the closet thought their hearts would 
 burst in their frantic efforts to make no sound 
 which might betray their presence. Eavesdrop- 
 ping on the King would be no venial offence 
 to be punished with a word of reproof. If the 
 door should fly open and reveal these crouching 
 listeners, their careers at Court were at an end, 
 and the Princess would be in need of two gentle- 
 women for her household. If some malevolent 
 sprite had but made either lady cough, or scream 
 at the invasion of some imaginary mouse, loyal 
 service would have been done to the King and his 
 daughter. For these ladies spying on the Royal 
 pair were likely to be of more worth to the Crown 
 
 186
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 at a distance from Court than as pampered inmates 
 of the Palace. 
 
 Sarah is a familiar figure. Lady Fitzharding 
 is rather less so. But she is a stranger only 
 because of her married title. Lady Fitzharding 
 was one of the daughters of Lady Frances Villiers, 
 Anne's old governess. She had played with the 
 Princess and Mary of Orange in the days of their 
 childhood at Richmond. There were six of the 
 Villiers sisters. A large family, with their for- 
 tunes in such wits as Heaven had endowed them 
 with, each in her own way managed to transmute 
 opportunity into gold. The eldest of the band led 
 the way to the conquest of power. Her deeds 
 are writ large all over the period. She was the 
 real Princess of Orange, a princess to make the 
 sensitive shudder. How Elizabeth Villiers broke 
 the spirit of Mary, and broke her heart, if a heart 
 she had to break, is a story which began on a 
 honeymoon the dreariest that ever was, and ended 
 only at Kensington Palace when Mary's spirit 
 had fluttered away to rest. In the history of the 
 time one meets the other members of the Villiers 
 sisterhood under the titles of Lady Inchiquin, 
 Mrs. Berkeley, Madame Puissars, Madame Ben- 
 tinck, and Lady Fitzharding. 
 
 The whole family were more or less William's 
 agents, and Sarah's companion at the Cockpit 
 was the Orange spy of Anne's household. There 
 
 187
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 was no secrecy in the relations of William with 
 Elizabeth Villiers. Anne was aware of the thorny 
 road along which lay her sister's pilgrimage, 
 and resented it with a degree of vehemence 
 which helped to make her brother-in-law loathe 
 her. Her indignation, frankly expressed at the 
 indignities heaped upon her sister by the eldest 
 of the Villiers tribe, seems scarcely consistent 
 with her patronage of Lady Fitzharding. Family 
 ties were, however, by no means indissoluble 
 bonds of friendship. Anne herself was not a 
 pattern of fidelity to claims of kinship, and why 
 should others be bound by ties to which the 
 Stuarts were indifferent? 
 
 Moreover, Anne was vain enough to suppose 
 that where she condescended to show favour, 
 her protegee should be infallibly content. That 
 she should trust Lady Fitzharding was to her 
 mind a sufficient reason why her ladyship should 
 love her and treasure her secrets as she would 
 her life. Just as Elizabeth Villiers had obtained 
 a fatal ascendency over the affections of Mary 
 when both were children, and just as Sarah had 
 established her dominion over Anne, so Lady 
 Fitzharding had inspired some attachment in the 
 heart of the younger princess which obtained for 
 her a place amongst the retinue at the Cockpit. 
 Sarah, with her deep insight into human nature, 
 must have had little relish for the association. 
 
 188
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 It meant that there was in the Palace a faithful 
 chronicler of her conduct for the benefit of the 
 Prince of Orange. But against this there was 
 an advantage which in some measure counter- 
 balanced it. She had under her eyes an agent 
 of The Hague conspirators, an agent who, while 
 prying into the affairs of others, could not veil 
 all her own from wits, the keenest at the Court. 
 Let her tell all she could discover, with Sarah as 
 inquisitor she would reveal more than she could 
 ever learn. 
 
 Hush ! the King is speaking again. 
 
 One of the two prisoners of the closet, as she 
 listened, gasped in anger or astonishment. It 
 was Sarah. 
 
 "... I am convinced," the King went on, 
 " that you have about you some one for whose 
 sake you have plunged yourself into these in- 
 conveniences. ..." 
 
 Sarah could have cried out. Her eyes blazed. 
 Her handsome face grew purple with rage. She 
 clenched her hands until the nails dug deep into 
 the palms ! Lady Fitzharding, trembling for her 
 own safety, would whisper a petition that she 
 might not betray them both. Poor fool ! As 
 if the peril of a Villiers could move Sarah 
 Churchill to compassion. The beautiful virago, 
 confident of her own strength to restrain her 
 wrath within prudent limits, and with no mind 
 
 189
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to deny herself the luxury of so indulging it, 
 glared like a tigress upon her companion who, 
 cowering into herself, repented her impertinence ! 
 
 Again the King's voice reached them, still soft 
 and kind, but very serious. 
 
 "... For the future," he said, "you must 
 regulate your establishment with more diligent 
 economy. ..." 
 
 The King could see that the Princess was 
 deeply wounded by his rebuke. Feelings, at 
 least in part due to the circumstance that there 
 were witnesses to this chiding, were attributed 
 by the King to causes far more worthy of a 
 daughter. With a few words of farewell, the 
 more gentle because designed to alleviate her 
 distress, His Majesty retired. 
 
 Now there was no further need for restraint. 
 Like a tigress Sarah bounded from her lair. 
 Her tongue was loosed, and nimbly did it keep 
 pace with her fury. 
 
 " Oh, madam 1 " she cried, " this is all due to 
 that old rascal, your uncle ! " 
 
 The old rascal was, of course, Lord Rochester, 
 who at the date of this incident had not yet 
 been relieved of the Treasurership through the 
 success of Sunderland's chicanery. Rochester, 
 it would seem, blamed the Churchills for the 
 depleted purse, which was a periodical occasion 
 of agitation to Anne. At such times James 
 
 190
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 was her never-failing refuge. The wild profusion 
 of her expenditure was less exasperating to the 
 King than the mystery in which its cause was 
 developed. 
 
 The Princess could supply no satisfactory 
 explanation of her bankrupt condition. Nor 
 were her accounts more illuminating. Anne 
 was an inveterate gambler. Cards and the chase 
 supplied her only distractions. Her passion for 
 play would easily account for her embarrassments, 
 for ruinous stakes were nightly lost and won in 
 the clubs and salons, and the King's daughter at 
 the Cockpit would naturally play for sums just 
 as large or as small as pleased her. If Anne as 
 a rule lost her money, and Sarah as regularly 
 won it, the fortunate lady who obliged her 
 mistress, with so much profit to herself, would 
 regard her winnings as a legitimate source of 
 gain, the fair wage of one who beguiled the 
 hours that hung so heavily on the hands of her 
 Royal patron. 
 
 Basset was possibly not the only form of 
 extravagance which made such disastrous inroads 
 on the Princess's revenue, nor the guineas swept 
 from the card-table the only consolations of 
 Sarah's service. Gifts in keeping with the 
 Royal donor's rank and the merits of the 
 recipient may have helped Lady Churchill to 
 support the trials of existence at Court. 
 
 191
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 An incident of life at the Cockpit at this 
 time illustrates at once Sarah's liberal notions of 
 her own deserts, and with what nicety of detail 
 the Prince of Orange was posted in the details 
 of its household arrangements. For the Cock- 
 pit, two pages of the backstairs were required. 
 The Princess Anne granted permission to Lady 
 Churchill to sell these two places. There was 
 nothing extraordinary in the privilege. The 
 sale of posts of all sorts was a practice con- 
 secrated by custom. The only antidote to the 
 abuses which flourished under such a tradition 
 was the publicity with which the transactions 
 were conducted. But though there was nothing 
 unusual in the concession extended to her 
 favourite by Anne, the sale of the places was 
 attended with strange consequences indeed. 
 
 Lady Churchill's choice fell upon two Catholics. 
 It was a remarkable selection, which examination 
 makes none the less inscrutable. The new 
 pages paid twelve hundred pounds for her lady- 
 ship's patronage ; but there must have been 
 many sound Protestants who would have paid 
 as much for the honour of waiting on the 
 second lady in the kingdom. When the ap- 
 pointments were announced there was instant 
 commotion. The interests of Orange were im- 
 perilled ! The Establishment was at stake ! One 
 Catholic page of the backstairs was a menace 
 
 192
 
 From a photo by Emery Walker, after the picture by Sir Godfrey Knellcr in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 SARAH JENNINGS, LADY CHURCHILL, LATER DUCHESS OF 
 MARLBOROUGH. 
 
 p. 192.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to the liberties of England to make brave men 
 shudder, but a backstairs held by two Papists ! 
 By the blood of the martyrs, never ! The storm 
 frightened Anne. She puckered her brows and 
 concentrated her mind on a great effort to 
 appreciate all sides of this momentous con- 
 troversy. A light dawned upon her. If one 
 of these fellows should invoke saints on her 
 backstairs ! If in the silent watches of the night 
 one of these flunkeys should cross himself 1 They 
 might introduce holy water surreptitiously into 
 the Cockpit, and Prince George, sensitive though 
 he was to error, might mistake the bottle. . . . 
 The thought was too dreadful. The pages were 
 dismissed, and the partisans of Orange once 
 more breathed freely. 
 
 Sarah's troubles only began when grace 
 illuminated thus happily the recesses of Anne's 
 mind. She held twelve hundred pounds belong- 
 ing to these villains who had so insidiously 
 threatened the serenity of the Kingdom. What 
 was she to do with all this money ? The rejected 
 pages would gladly receive it back. But their 
 disgrace had to be taken into consideration. 
 Could so much money be entrusted to such 
 rascals with justice to their distracted country ? 
 Sarah, by a mathematical process known only to 
 herself, worked out an answer to the problem, 
 and her unlucky proteges were returned eight 
 
 VOL. i 193 o
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 hundred pounds, the balance of four hundred 
 pounds being the measure of their chastisement 
 and of their patroness's compensation. 
 
 The extraordinary timbre of Sarah's conscience 
 with regard to money matters may be deduced 
 to some extent from the misfortune of these two 
 gentlemen. But to Sarah the transaction wore 
 a complexion grotesquely virtuous. She actually 
 boasted of her part in it as an example of her 
 magnanimity. 
 
 A nobler conception of her duty towards one 
 at least of the victims of Orange intolerance 
 inspired Anne. This man had long been in her 
 service in other capacities, and would no doubt 
 have continued at the Cockpit had not his desire 
 to purchase advancement obtained for him un- 
 fortunate recognition at The Hague. When 
 obliged to send him away in deference to the 
 wishes of her sister Mary, who traced some deep 
 political intrigue in the whole affair, though 
 doubtless not of her own unaided vision, the 
 dismissed servitor was liberally provided for by 
 Anne. This sympathy for an old retainer was 
 characteristic of the Princess. Her generosity 
 indeed constituted one of her greatest charms. 
 She delighted to give. Yet by some strange 
 contradiction, this lady of contradictions, this 
 Princess Perverse, who was always eager to 
 shower rewards upon her friends and retainers, 
 
 194
 
 would not make for her father the smallest 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Her prodigality, her reckless contempt for 
 money, impart to Anne something of the in- 
 definable but irresistible Stuart glamour. No 
 one of the doomed and fascinating race was like 
 any other. And yet the portrait of a Stuart, 
 whether vices or virtues predominate, is un- 
 mistakable. They stand alone in their sins, 
 alone in their sorrows, alone in their ambitions. 
 No one thinks of James I. or Charles II. in 
 relation to Anne. Yet the same unbounded 
 extravagance adorns the life of each with a certain 
 gay and reckless splendour. Anne disdained to 
 think about money. Instead, she thought, as it 
 were, in gold. But in the end there was little to 
 show for all this child-like trust that, as the fields 
 produced their fruits with unfailing regularity, 
 so would the Treasury ever yield an abundant 
 harvest. Her imagination was too limited, her 
 knowledge of the world too restricted, her educa- 
 tion too shallow to admit of her extravagance 
 ever leading her into the commission of anything 
 brilliant. It made her an easy victim for those 
 who were given the chance to fleece her, and 
 scrupled not to use it. That was all. 
 
 The delightful confusion which reigned in the 
 administration of the finances of the Cockpit is 
 illustrated by the achievement of the accountant, 
 
 195
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 a Mr. Maule. The audacious Etherege, did he 
 but know of this gentleman's name and station, 
 might have been pardoned for seeing a pun in 
 the former ; and the jest would have been 
 warranted by the manner in which the Princess's 
 affairs suffered under his able supervision. 
 Maule's training as an accountant was in keeping 
 with the spirit of the Cockpit. His service began 
 as bedchamber man to Prince George. In this 
 office the most exacting strain upon his intellect 
 would perhaps consist in counting the wine. His 
 duties, however, such as they were, left Mr. 
 Maule some leisure, and this happy circumstance 
 saved his talents as a bookkeeper from being 
 buried in oblivion. 
 
 The Churchills were the instruments of Mr. 
 Maule's rise to fortune. It was they who ob- 
 tained for him admission to the Royal service ; 
 and to Sarah belongs the credit of having dis- 
 covered in him the master whose sleight-of-hand 
 would make her mistress's ledgers balance to the 
 penny. But alas for the vanity of human hopes ! 
 Under Mr. Maule's expert manipulation the 
 Princess's position became worse than ever, and 
 the visit of the King to expostulate with her on 
 the subject of her failure to live within her 
 income marked the crown of his labours. At 
 the time Sarah blamed, as we have seen, that 
 " old rascal," Anne's uncle, for the King's annoy- 
 
 196
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 ance. But later, when Mr. Maule had grown to 
 be a person of some consequence, he had the 
 temerity to quarrel with the lady who had 
 watched over his first hesitating steps as a novice 
 to the Court, and then Sarah cast on the affair 
 light that made it more intelligible. Complain- 
 ing of his ingratitude, she wrote : 
 
 " I had not only brought him to be bed- 
 chamber man to the Prince, when he was quite 
 a stranger to the Court, but, to mend his salary, 
 had invented an employment for him, that of 
 overlooking the Prince's accounts." 
 
 Mr. Maule's ingratitude must be forgiven by 
 posterity, since Sarah's confession that she 
 " invented " this employment for him was elicited 
 by his offence against her. Without this con- 
 fession how tame a personage would this Maule 
 be ! But as the man who fired Sarah's genius to 
 invention, we can at once see in him an agreeable 
 and aspiring fellow, very amiable and very clever, 
 with a gift for making himself useful when re- 
 quired, and of vanishing when superfluous. And 
 Maule is also interesting, not only because of 
 what he was, but because of what he symbolised. 
 The relations of Sarah and George's bedchamber- 
 men were to be repeated a little later, but on a 
 more impressive scale, with Maule's place filled 
 by Abigail Hill, that other " stranger to the 
 Court," who by-and-by was to eclipse the im- 
 
 197
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 perious Sarah herself, and fill the place in Anne's 
 affections where Lady Churchill had reigned so 
 long an unrivalled autocrat. 
 
 With King James's warning ringing in her 
 ears, " For the future you must regulate your 
 establishment with more diligent economy," 
 Anne had to appease the wrath of the infuriated 
 Sarah. Unhappy Princess ! What could she do 
 with Maule as her accountant and Sarah as her 
 monitress and his ! It was hopeless . . . hope- 
 less ! And so, in the piling up of the temptations 
 which eventually decided the Princess on the 
 path of treachery, lucre doubtless played its part, 
 though, with all her faults, she loved it little. 
 But if she loved it little, at her right hand were 
 the Churchills, with itching palms, having much, 
 but ever grasping and grasping for more. 
 
 198
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 " T~ MEAN to be in St. James's Palace to-night, 
 ** if I lie on the boards," exclaimed Mary of 
 Modena. And the Queen was as good as her 
 word. Late that night she was carried to the 
 Palace, which had been her first English home, 
 and there was born to her on the following day 
 a son of sorrow, the very own child of a Queen 
 of Tears. 
 
 The night was that of the 9th of June, 1688, 
 and Mary, feeling that she was fast approaching 
 the gates in the mist beyond which all was 
 uncertainty, was impatient to escape from 
 Whitehall to her old home, lying very brown and 
 dingy across the Park, like a castle whose lords of 
 restless blood often wandered to far distant lands, 
 leaving its echoing courts to desolation and decay. 
 
 Whitehall was the gay heart of a spirited 
 nation. St. James's was as unlike it as though 
 the paths over the intervening strip of green were 
 hundreds of miles long, leading to some lonely 
 outpost where grizzled warriors and sad-faced 
 women garrisoned some forgotten keep. It was 
 
 199
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the very place to enchain the imagination of a 
 Queen nurtured on the legends of Italian chivalry. 
 The angel-spirit of her little Isabelle hovered 
 round its turrets and blessed its galleries, and she 
 willed that her child should be born in that 
 hallowed place. 
 
 For nearly twenty years England had had no 
 Prince of Wales. It was as though the luck of the 
 Royal House had departed, and that Nature her- 
 self had executed on the Stuarts the fate to which 
 the Cromwellians had condemned them. It was 
 late in 1687 that the rumour got abroad of the 
 Queen's expectations. The King's joy was bound- 
 less. A boy was the prize for which his soul 
 craved. The King loved his daughters dearly, 
 especially tender was his affection for Anne ; 
 but to rule a great kingdom is a man's work, and 
 the man for Merrie England was a son of their 
 kings. How he prayed to be blessed with a son 
 did Heaven alone know ! But pray he did with 
 passionate fervour, and to his prayers were united 
 those of his queen, who, with touching solicitude 
 for her husband's happiness, loved him all the 
 more intensely because of her wrongs. Like 
 another Griselda, she won her lord by gentleness, 
 passing to conquest over the rugged road of 
 tribulation. The gift with which she would 
 reward the King for his love was a son, and none 
 other could be commensurate with her passion to 
 
 200
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 delight him, nor could a lesser boon make him 
 quite content. 
 
 For this not only did King and Queen pray, 
 but Heaven was stormed with petitions on their 
 behalf. Pilgrimages were performed, relics of 
 the blessed invoked, and sacred places visited. 
 King James sought the holy well of St. Winifred, 
 and at the ancient Welsh shrine implored the gift 
 to his House of a prince of this gallant Celtic 
 land a Prince of Wales. The Duchess of 
 Modena begged the intercession of the Madonna 
 at the far-famed shrine of Our Lady of Loretto. 
 There she prayed with all the fervour of a mother 
 that the Blessed Lady might plead before the 
 Throne of her Son for the Divine breath the 
 wondrous tongue of flame, which, knitting the 
 mysteries of Nature and Supernature, makes man. 
 
 With so many minds inflamed with the ardour 
 of desire it is not surprising that when the joyful 
 news of the Queen's expectations was proclaimed 
 the emotional translated a blessing into a miracle. 
 Forgetting in their elation that Mary of Modena 
 was a young woman, comparisons were instituted 
 between her hopes and those which inspired the 
 aged dame in Abraham's tent with the rapture of 
 a bride. It was the ravishing promise of the 
 coming of Isaac. 
 
 But the sky was not all cloudless. The good 
 tidings had scarcely been announced when a 
 
 20]
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 rumour, softly whispered at first in dark places 
 by evil tongues, grew and grew until it became 
 the gossip of the market-place. In the clubs, 
 in the coffee-houses, in the City it was heard, and 
 the loungers in Whitehall gaped at the Royal 
 apartments as though confirmation of this fable 
 might be espied through wicket or lattice. It 
 was fable that in one form or another has been 
 heard in every land where broad domains have 
 depended upon the coming of a baby boy. 
 
 It was said that if a girl were born to the 
 Queen a spurious infant would be put in her 
 place who would be palmed off on the nation as 
 Prince of Wales. Surmise is baffled as to who 
 started this story, which imputed the grossest 
 fraud and injustice to the King and Queen. A 
 significant look from some Royal personage or 
 political magnate, a nod of doubt or acquiescence, 
 a cynical smile, the lifting of an eyebrow, may 
 have given completion to the idea but half formed 
 in some underling's brain, and only half uttered. 
 But the kernel of the calumny, however formed, 
 grew as only a lie can grow. Taken up by the 
 thoughtless, their imagination endowed it with 
 whatever symmetry they deemed essential to 
 so momentous a secret of the Palace. And 
 what the thoughtless added and superadded in 
 their zeal for art, the malignant improved upon 
 in their zeal for mischief. 
 
 202
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The Princess Anne was captivated by this notion 
 of a Pretender being introduced into the Palace 
 as a Prince of Wales. It was just what might 
 have been expected from Anne. To analyse 
 anything which ran with her fancy was distaste- 
 ful to her. Analysis might discover weak spots 
 and the stamp of dishonesty. This would be 
 very gratifying to a searcher after truth, but very 
 disappointing to a lady who, if the truth failed 
 to fit her theory, was only angry that truth should 
 be so clumsy. One of Anne's theories was that 
 Mary of Modena was not destined to be the 
 mother of a future King of England. The only 
 proof which the Princess could adduce in its 
 support was that if the Queen had a son who 
 lived, she herself would never wear the Crown ! 
 To this amazing logician the argument was con- 
 clusive. She could not believe that Nature 
 would be guilty of inflicting on her so cruel a 
 disappointment. The blow would be too wanton. 
 There was, of course, her sister Mary to come 
 before her. A poor sort of Queen she would 
 make, to be sure ! But it would never do to allow 
 Nature the privilege of making distinctions and 
 drawing comparisons. One could never tell to 
 what error of judgment such a concession might 
 lead. Amongst her friends she would speak her 
 mind frankly about Mary ; but to Nature never. 
 So there was Mary, and there was herself.
 
 England was made for them, and they for 
 England ; and Nature, confounded by the subtlety 
 of the reasoning, humbly said : 
 
 " This Queen must keep her vigil with arms 
 empty. Anyhow, she is an Italian, and very 
 likely a Papist. Let her be scourged. Here 
 are two most estimable young ladies of the 
 English Blood Royal whoever mourns they must 
 not be grieved. One of them, she who is the 
 younger and more beautiful, is a creature of 
 scintillating wit. That logic of hers leaves me 
 abashed. How fortunate nobody ever thought 
 of reasoning like her before, or poor old Nature 
 might go to sleep ! " 
 
 And thus it was that Nature laughed at Anne. 
 When it became apparent to the Princess that 
 an heir might be born her chagrin drove her 
 nearly frantic. Her letters survive to convict 
 her of such envy and malice and treachery as 
 would be credible on no other evidence. 
 
 Anne, writing to Mary of Orange, prophesied 
 that her father would very shortly have a son. 
 The prophecy was intended to convince Mary 
 of the King's resolve to foist a spurious child 
 upon the realm. The Queen's part in the fraud 
 she touched upon thus delicately in her wrath : 
 
 " When any one talks of her situation, she looks 
 as if she was afraid we should touch her ; and 
 whenever I have happened to be in the room, 
 
 204
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 and she has been undressing, she has always been 
 gone in the bedroom. . . . 
 
 " These things give me so much suspicion, 
 that when she is brought to bed mo one will 
 be convinced 'tis her child, unless it prove a 
 daughter." 
 
 " Unless it prove a daughter ! " Thus does 
 Anne with her inimitable impudence dictate 
 terms to Nature herself. And again " If the 
 expected offspring should not prove a daughter " 
 it would not be the Queen's child. 
 
 Never was there such drawing-room comedy 
 with the spirit of tragedy hovering near. But 
 Anne was conscious neither of the humour nor 
 the pathos. She was too grimly in earnest in 
 her efforts to prove that Mary of Modena's 
 children should be all girls, and that her boys 
 should be other people's. 
 
 Anne found Mary of Orange an inquiring 
 rather than an effusive correspondent. The 
 letters from The Hague to the Cockpit during 
 this period were apparently destroyed, or if in 
 existence their whereabouts have yet to be dis- 
 covered. But Mary had passed through too stern 
 a discipline to revel in childish make-believes. 
 With something of the unfeeling austerity of 
 her husband's nature she learned of the mad tales 
 of the scandalmongers, valued them at their true 
 worth, and if within her heart one chord of 
 
 205
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 sympathy stirred because of the persecution with 
 which her hapless stepmother was being pursued, 
 she made no sign of pity. Numbed with her 
 own sufferings, atrophied with neglect, pity, per- 
 haps, was dead within her soul ; or if it were not 
 dead, then none was left for others when Mary 
 of Orange, loveless, friendless, childless, scorned, 
 had had her due. 
 
 Once more we tread the mazes of Whitehall. 
 This time we turn our backs upon the Cockpit, 
 and invade the Royal apartments. Golden can- 
 delabra glisten on the walls. Ceilings and panels 
 are gorgeous with the masterpieces of Europe's 
 greatest painters. The marble staircases are 
 guarded by Royal servants in resplendent livery. 
 Hush ! there is the hum of voices which, low and 
 musical, with a certain vibrant note of command 
 pervading it, announces the sanctuary of the 
 purple. Unseen hands fold backwards the 
 tapestries . . . Behold the Queen's drawing- 
 room ! For an instant the picture dazzles one. 
 The golden candelabra, the ladies' jewels, the 
 men's rapiers, the flashing eyes, the shining silks, 
 the clouds of filmy lace, the panels of bold and 
 lifelike colouring, confuse with their multi- 
 tudinous impressions. But only for a moment ; 
 then colour blends with colour, and the whole 
 stands forth, with the Queen and a few ladies 
 playing cards in the centre at a dainty inlaid 
 
 206
 
 table, a tableau of flawless design, of impeccable 
 taste. 
 
 Close by the Queen was Godolphin, paler than 
 usual, his immobile features set like a figure 
 sculptured in marble. Ever and anon his eye 
 wandered from the Queen to the door, and back 
 again to the Queen. Very different from the 
 child-bride we saw in the theatre at Whitehall the 
 night of the masque, is this pensive lady who now, 
 with Royal bravery, though distracted with fear 
 and oppressed with illness and apprehension, 
 holds her Court. 
 
 A gentleman approaches Godolphin. The 
 Chamberlain's features relax a little as though 
 relieved by the whispered tidings. Then the 
 Minister approaches the Queen, and, bowing low 
 to her, awaits a pause in the card-playing that 
 he may deliver his message. 
 
 The poor young Queen acknowledges his 
 obeisance with a glance, and continues the game. 
 Etiquette compels. She is on the rack where 
 the grandees of the earth are broken with smiles 
 and courtesies. The Queen dropped her cards. 
 Here was the Minister's chance. 
 
 " Madam," he murmured, " St. James's Palace 
 is ready for your reception." 
 
 The Queen smiled. Her great dark eyes, 
 made almost weirdly brilliant by the purple 
 shadows beneath them, were instantly shaded by 
 
 207
 
 the heavily fringed lids. Perhaps there were 
 tears in them, which, not for the Crown of 
 England, would she have her companions 
 observe. Then the game was resumed. Bravo, 
 Mary ! It was the spirit of Este. 
 
 It was close upon midnight when the Court 
 broke up. Then the Queen, entering her sedan 
 chair, and escorted by the King and Godolphin, 
 was carried across the Park to St. James's Palace. 
 She had said she would be there that night, 
 though she had to lie on the boards. And, as 
 good as her word, she was there. 
 
 St. James's was no longer the lonely castle 
 deserted by its lord, made more lonely by 
 menials idling away the days without a master. 
 Now the old palace was alive to the very battle- 
 ments. King and Queen had come with their 
 households, and if there had been some danger 
 that Her Majesty should have had to lie upon the 
 floor, all was not trim and comfortable, we may 
 be sure, for the ladies and gentlemen of varying 
 degrees who made up the entourage of the Court. 
 
 The June sun was polishing to the brightness 
 of marble the Palace balustrades next morning, 
 and making its grimy walls scintillate like 
 battered bronze above the dewy green of the 
 sward spreading away to deserted Whitehall, 
 when the hopes of the King were fulfilled, and 
 England once more had a Prince of Wales. 
 
 208
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The courtiers galloped forth with the great 
 news, and at the Tower the artillerymen, stand- 
 ing ready by the guns, heard the wild clatter of 
 the advancing hoofs, and, ramming home the 
 charge, their salute burst forth over the City 
 almost before the lieutenant's signal. Again 
 and again and again the thunder of the guns 
 rolled over the moat, and the bells of the City 
 churches burst into merry peals. 
 
 But there was something of mockery in all 
 these signs of rejoicing. The baby at the palace 
 a Prince indeed ! Not he ! He was the son of 
 God-knows-who, picked up to delude and en- 
 slave the people. For months prophets and 
 apostles had been busy preaching the gospel of a 
 great fraud to be perpetrated on the nation. 
 Behold, it was consummated ! Here was the 
 scion of roguery in the Palace cradle ! 
 
 A beggarly miller's son was to be the future 
 King of England. 
 
 That was the story circulated amongst the 
 people. The miller's son, they said, was intro- 
 duced into the Queen's bedchamber in a warm- 
 ing-pan. To Father Petre was attributed this 
 master-stroke of policy. Simple folk in city and 
 country believed this tale. It appealed to the 
 crude imagination of an illiterate populace, who 
 could know nothing of the circumstances which 
 made it the clumsiest of lies. 
 
 VOL. i 209 p
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The Queen's bedchamber and the adjacent 
 apartments and corridors were alive with people 
 all through that eventful Sabbath morning. Nor 
 were these people all Catholics. On the contrary 
 a great number of them were opposed to the 
 King in religion and politics. The moment 
 the Queen's hour had come messengers were 
 dispatched to summon the Queen Dowager and 
 her ladies, the members of the Privy Council, 
 Ministers, Ambassadors, and the great ladies of 
 the household. 
 
 One lady could not be summoned. The 
 Mistress of the Cockpit was not at home 
 for this emergency. She was at Bath, 
 taking the waters. The Jacobites said, after- 
 wards, that she left London of set purpose 
 sooner than be a witness of an event which 
 might blast all her dearest hopes. The Whigs, 
 on the other hand, explained her absence by the 
 fact that the Queen was out in her reckoning by 
 some weeks, and that if the child had not been 
 born until July, as was anticipated, she would 
 have been back at Whitehall in time to bear 
 testimony that this really was her brother. 
 
 Miss Strickland, a chivalrous defender of the 
 persecuted Queen, believes that Anne purposely 
 went into the country to avoid being present at 
 the Queen's bedside under circumstances which 
 would have given the lie to all her doubts and 
 
 210
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 suspicions, and have at the same time deprived 
 her of all warrant for disputing her brother's birth- 
 right. Macaulay, as emphatic on the other side, 
 excuses Anne's holiday at such a critical period, 
 when her whole future was at stake, and, according 
 to her own letters, a heinous conspiracy was afoot, 
 on the plea that she did not think it necessary to 
 be at her post a month beforehand. But before 
 leaving for Bath, Anne, in conversation with the 
 Queen, dropped a remark which makes the 
 judgment of historians unnecessary. She said : 
 
 " Madam, I think you will be ill before I 
 return." 
 
 It was with the conviction, therefore, that all 
 would be over when she should return that the 
 Princess turned her back upon London. That is 
 to say, she went away so as to facilitate the 
 infliction upon herself of an enormous injustice. 
 It was as though one were asked to believe that 
 she handed over the keys of her treasure to 
 robbers, and having heard their pleasure and 
 convenience, moved into the country so as not 
 to incommode their operations. 
 
 Anne's uncle, Lord Clarendon, and Lord 
 Rochester, could have been summoned to the 
 Palace. James, however, did not think this was 
 necessary, nor did he invite the Dutch Am- 
 bassador to be present. There were consequently 
 no representatives of the interests of his daughters ; 
 
 211
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 and though no blame can be imputed to James 
 for failing to defend himself in this way against 
 a crime which he never dreamt of committing, 
 yet the occasion called for extreme foresight and 
 prudence. The test of both was success or 
 failure . . . and James failed. 
 
 But the warming-pan and the miller's son ! 
 The Queen was trembling with cold the cold 
 of fear. With teeth chattering, a lamentable 
 figure in her misery, her ladies, hurrying in, found 
 her seated in a corner of her apartment. She 
 asked that the bed might be warmed before she 
 should return to it. The Queen's request was 
 a command. It passed from lip to lip through 
 the galleries and anterooms, the corridors and 
 halls, until it reached the menials in the Palace 
 basement. Every one of them had heard or 
 read of the plot to introduce a spurious child 
 into the Queen's room. All night, and all 
 through the morning, they had been watching 
 and listening. 
 
 They had seen the guards changed, courtiers 
 ride into the courtyard and ride away, gentle- 
 men gallop forth for a breath in Hyde Park. 
 Ladies with solemn faces and ponderous prayer- 
 books hastened to morning prayers at the Palace 
 chapel. But there was no baby, no mysterious 
 carriage, no heavily-draped nurse, no significant 
 bundle and inevitable tell-tale cry. . . . 
 
 212
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 This command of a warming-pan for the 
 Queen's room on a glorious June morning was 
 the first hint to the servants of the maturing of 
 a dark conspiracy. The pan was got out and 
 dusted and well filled with hot coals, red-hot at 
 that, so that if trickery were afoot the rogues 
 should at least burn their fingers, and perhaps 
 by rare good fortune roast the brat they would 
 make a Prince of Wales. Heads were put 
 together. There were patriotic maledictions from 
 the Whigs of the kitchen, a final coal, the reddest 
 and hottest in the grate, was crammed into the 
 pan, and away it went to warm the Queen's 
 bed, while the whole town soon had it that when 
 it reached Her Majesty's apartment its contents 
 were a baby boy the boy for whom the cannons 
 thundered and the bells pealed. 
 
 Though two hundred years have passed, there 
 rises before the mind's eye sharply, vivid as 
 though it all happened but yesterday, a vision 
 of the sick woman's chamber, wherein every 
 emotion of the human heart, however noble, 
 however tender, however base, found expression. 
 The Queen in her travail . . . God help her ! 
 And the story records not the name of a great 
 lady there whose eyes were wet with tears of 
 sorrow and of reverence for this martyrdom 
 designed by God for woman in the days of the 
 Garden one knows not why ! 
 
 213
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 If Anne was not there by the Queen, an old 
 friend of hers was not far away the Earl of 
 Mulgrave. Amidst the war of creeds and 
 factions, amidst the maze of intrigues, the gay 
 lover of the Princess in the days of her Windsor 
 romance had contrived somehow to hold his 
 place in the Royal Household. Whatever 
 tender feeling Anne had once inspired had long 
 since been effaced in the white-hot furnace of 
 his susceptible heart. To him the place was a 
 theatre, the sick woman the heroine, doing her 
 part to the life. This was better than the 
 masques of the last reign, an entertainment that 
 not Versailles itself could excel. . . . 
 
 There was Sunderland, too, a shade less suave 
 than was his wont, for none knew better than 
 he how quickly now the tide was rising which, 
 surging over the land, might bring even to the 
 most prudent traitor of them all destruction. 
 And when the flood should reach him. . . . 
 
 Every moment the group of gentlemen at the 
 remote end of the chamber grew more numerous. 
 Jermyn joined Sunderland, and then in stalked 
 the soldierly Peterborough. Godolphin, his face 
 impassive as a mask, soon appeared. They said 
 he loved the Queen like a young sister. Know- 
 ing the gossip, one might think that he was a 
 trifle paler than usual, and that his lips were 
 more rigidly set, as though he were sorry for the 
 
 214
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 woman, sorry for the child, and sorry for the 
 double-dealing that here he could not bear to 
 think of. ... 
 
 Then Lady Sunderland appeared. When the 
 Royal messenger found her she was taking part 
 in the communion service at the Palace chapel. 
 Her ladyship, whose piety Anne so diligently 
 laboured to perpetuate, was loath to leave the 
 altar at such a moment. She tarried therefore 
 awhile, determined to finish her devotions before 
 obeying the King's summons. But again ,a 
 messenger approached her, and this time she 
 tore herself away. Perhaps she would have 
 been as well pleased had they let her stay to say 
 all her litanies. For there was the warming-pan 
 with its burden of hot coals before her eyes, and 
 she, for one, dare not swear it had ever cradled 
 a baby. She busied herself close by the sick 
 woman, she, Sidney's friend, so that, though the 
 Dutch Ambassador was not there, The Hague 
 had its spy. . . . 
 
 How the Ambassadors, who knew so much of 
 the secret history being made by these men and 
 women, must have marvelled that faces so fair- 
 seeming could disguise hearts so dead to every 
 finer feeling marvelled perhaps and admired the 
 stoicism which united perfect breeding with the 
 morals and courage of banditti 1 
 
 One man was there whom the Queen doubtless 
 215
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 wished far away when she caught a glimpse of 
 him for a moment through the draperies of her 
 couch. It was Jeffreys, the judge of the red- 
 hand, the monster of the Western circuit. The 
 Queen shuddered, as well she might, for though 
 as Lord Chancellor of the realm he had a right 
 to be there, yet gladly would she have missed 
 from her bedside so sinister a countenance. And 
 Jeffreys ! If he caught the suffering woman's 
 horrified glance it excited not his sympathy 
 nor moved him to shame, for this hero of the 
 judgment-seat had no sympathies and no shame. 
 He had toyed with human life, and proved the 
 hardness of his heart where granite might have 
 melted away in pity. 
 
 The Queen Dowager entered with her ladies, 
 and Mary's attendants made way that the elder 
 lady might whisper a gentle word in the younger 
 one's ear. Queen Catharine looked round at the 
 great lords and their dames, she met their glances 
 coldly, and knew them for what they were. For 
 years they had been daily witnesses of her 
 humiliation, and had borne themselves with the 
 same grace while they despised her that now 
 they paraded before this Queen whom they were 
 preparing to betray. 
 
 There was a slight commotion. The King ! 
 The rake of the old days, the hero of a hundred 
 tight tf loves, was now a battered rake indeed, 
 
 216
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 an old and careworn man, a madman from 
 brooding on one circle of ideas. They talked 
 of miracles, of signs, and of wonders. What 
 miracle like this that this gaunt man, with little 
 behind him save sins, and little before him save 
 hard fortune, should be loved by the immaculate 
 young Princess of Este, the hem of whose gar- 
 ment he was unworthy to kiss ! 
 
 The King, standing amongst his councillors, 
 stared incessantly at Lady Sunderland. It was 
 as though he were hypnotised. They wondered 
 why he stared, stern and silent, like a sentinel. 
 
 A feeble little cry of farewell to the God of Life, 
 a cry of salutation to the gay world of Death. . . . 
 
 It was the new-born babe, and a brighter light 
 shone in every eye, even in the eye of the Judas 
 and of the Nero. 
 
 Still the King made no sign. His eye was 
 fixed on Lady Sunderland. 
 
 Every instant was a year to him. His heart 
 stood still. He ceased to breathe. 
 
 Lady Sunderland turned at last, one finger 
 pressed to her brow. 
 
 It was a signal, and the signal read " A 
 Prince ! " 
 
 The tears rushed to the King's eyes, and, master 
 of himself no longer, he cried out in his excite- 
 ment, " What is it ? " 
 
 " A prince," they answered. 
 217
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Like one dazed he heard. They were con- 
 gratulating him, but he did not know what they 
 said or who they were. He was deaf and blind, 
 for all his life was centred in his heart, now 
 bursting with the joy of desire fulfilled. 
 
 The ladies jostled one another to see, to touch, 
 the precious child, and then, with an escort of 
 rustling dames Lady Bellasyse, Lady Isabella 
 Wentworth, Mrs. de Labadie the Prince was 
 carried in state to his apartments, with the Earl 
 of Feversham as pursuivant heralding his pro- 
 gress. 
 
 With transports of joy beyond all power of 
 expression, the King fell on his knees beside the 
 Queen and kissed her. No other language could 
 give form to his feelings. 
 
 And then he turned away to leave the Queen 
 to her devoted physician Walgrave. But his 
 Majesty had an inspiration. A sword quickly 1 
 Mulgrave, or one of his gentlemen, drew a blade 
 and presented to the King the hilt. 
 
 " Kneel, Walgrave ! " The sword drops lightly 
 on his shoulder, and the reward of the loyal 
 physician was the accolade of knighthood. 
 
 Laughing softly at the good Walgrave's sur- 
 prise and pleasure, James strode away, the 
 happiest man in Christendom. 
 
 The long-hoped-for, the long-prayed -for one 
 had come. The Prince of Wales filled the empty 
 
 218
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 cradle, a link with the glorious past, a pledge for 
 the future, come to gladden the hearts of English- 
 men. But, Lord, what fools these mortals be ! 
 The child was his father's ruin. It was his tiny 
 baby fists that shattered the empire of the Stuarts. 
 The infant's feeble cry raised in the nursery of 
 St. James's was a call to war. The winds caught 
 up the challenge, and carried it over the sea to 
 The Hague. William barkened with alarm and 
 wrath. Where were now his castles in the air ! 
 Yesterday, through his wife, he was heir to the 
 fair realm of England. Now he was a Dutch 
 Prince, lord of dykes, and canals, and sturdy 
 burghers, and that was all. Oh yes ! One thing 
 more ! There was his sword, tested and tempered 
 on many a famous battlefield of the Empire. 
 
 219
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 as flying post-horses and the lightest of 
 chaises could carry her one could fancy 
 Anne Stuart hastening from Bath to London. 
 Straight to St. James's Palace would the caval- 
 cade gallop, the people crowding into the streets 
 to cheer, a loyal eagerness that warmed their 
 hearts ; and the postillions, proud to ride before 
 so great a lady, would whip up their steeds for a 
 final spurt, and with a joyous " hilloa ! " charge 
 bravely into the Palace court-yard. The de- 
 lighted courtiers would come trooping out to 
 meet her, and radiant with joy and laughing in 
 the midst of them, the King. Her voice ringing 
 with gladness, she would congratulate her father. 
 Swift, then, to the Queen ! Impatient for a 
 sweeter meeting, there would be a word or two and 
 an excited embrace for her Majesty. Away ! Away 
 to her brother the Prince of Wales ! Sweet babe ! 
 Gallant name ! Where ? Where had they hidden 
 her baby brother ? Ah ! There was the cradle ; 
 at last the precious boy into whose tiny fists she 
 would put as a plaything her very heart. . . . ' 
 
 220
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Sadly delusive picture ! Anne brought to the 
 cradle a heart of stone. The boy had in truth 
 no sister. 
 
 James was indeed easily deceived if during 
 these proud days, tinged with apprehension, some 
 intuition did not come to him that Anne was 
 false. Instantly the thought would be banished, 
 for was she not his darling, in whom his fond 
 eyes would see no flaw? But, crush it as he 
 would, again and again it would return the 
 uprising of reason against the folly of a father 
 who would cheat himself with sad delusions. 
 Jealousy and disappointment such as maddened 
 Anne at the birth of her brother could not be 
 concealed. She was a great actress. But emotions 
 like these turn the blood to gall, and a smile 
 there never was which came from such a heart 
 but looked a mockery of delight. 
 
 If Anne's eyes met her father's he must have 
 seen something in them which puzzled and 
 frightened him. He looked around for excuses 
 for her. She was ill. The troubled state of the 
 country made her solicitous for him. She was 
 distressed lest the Prince of Wales should be 
 snatched from them. While all London was 
 ringing with insults directed against the King, 
 the Queen, and the Prince, James would have 
 been relieved to find at the Cockpit one with 
 whom he could freely discuss the troubles of the 
 
 221
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Royal Family. But Anne was preoccupied. 
 She listened, but he wanted her to speak ; and 
 when she spoke her sympathy lacked some note, 
 he knew not what, which would make it just 
 what he would wish from a daughter. Yet he 
 dare not admit to himself that her kindness rang 
 hollow, that at the Cockpit too he was betrayed. 
 Still trifling with innocence, though she was in 
 love with sin, Anne wrote to the Princess of 
 Orange as though she were an inquirer after 
 the truth, lamenting the torch that was not to 
 be found. Thus : 
 
 " I shall never now be satisfied whether the 
 child be true or false, maybe 'tis our brother . . . 
 where one believes it a crowd do not. For my 
 part, unless they do give very plain demonstra- 
 tion (which 'tis almost impossible now) I shall 
 ever be of the number of the unbelievers." 
 
 A little later the unwelcome baby was ill. 
 His gentle sister wrote to The Hague : 
 
 " If he has been so bad as people say, I believe 
 it will not be long before he is an angel in 
 Heaven." 
 
 While the child's life hung by a thread, and 
 Anne watched for the messenger from St. 
 James's who would bring the good news that 
 he was no more, the King was bowed in prayer 
 in his oratory. While his heart bled, he offered 
 up to his Creator the child who to him was the 
 
 222
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 light of the world. Heaven had given him, and, 
 if Heaven pleased, let him be given back. 
 
 " Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, 
 sobbed the broken King, shrinking from the 
 sword which, like the blade of old in the hands 
 of the patriarch, he saw flashing above the altar. 
 
 But the call did not come for the child, and so 
 his sisters continued to debate his origin. Mary's 
 character had a directness which one surmises 
 was at times irritating to Anne. About her 
 brother, Mary wanted evidence. At The Hague 
 they did not trifle. The logic of the spoiled 
 child of the Cockpit annoyed her sister. Anne 
 was a stranger to the realities of life. Her 
 unhappy sister had not a girlish illusion left. 
 Anne's mind was as colourless as that of a 
 village damsel, but in the school of suffering 
 Mary's- mind had reached the maturity of a 
 woman advanced in middle age. With a certain 
 measure of awe, therefore, Anne received her 
 commands. It was repugnant to the younger 
 sister to obey anybody, but by some strange 
 irony of circumstance obedience was always her 
 destiny. At Mary's behest she collected a 
 detailed account of the Prince's birth from Mrs. 
 Dawson, who, as an old and faithful servant of 
 their mother's, and a sound Protestant, would 
 naturally be a witness friendly to their interests. 
 Mrs. Dawson's evidence would be conclusive to 
 
 223
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 an impartial mind. But to Anne the truth only 
 meant multiplied confusion. She wrote to Mary 
 that she had questioned Mrs. Dawson, but so 
 warily that she might not betray herself to the 
 good lady as the devil's advocate. 
 
 She had, however, to guard against a greater 
 embarrassment than the fear lest Mrs. Dawson 
 should read her thoughts. It lurked in the 
 possibility that the conversation should be re- 
 peated to the Queen as an example of the 
 Princess's sisterly curiosity in all that related 
 to her brother. The Queen was not easily 
 deceived. She would jump to conclusions which 
 would do no honour to Anne either as sister or 
 daughter, and, sadder still, would at the same 
 time do her no injustice. When she had spoken 
 to Mrs. Dawson, she wrote to Mary : 
 
 "All she [Mrs. Dawson] says seems wonder- 
 fully clear, but one does not know what to think ; 
 for methinks it is wonderful if it is no cheat, that 
 they never took pains to convince me of it." 
 
 Some hint Mrs. Dawson probably did convey 
 to the Queen of the cross-examination to which 
 Anne had subjected her. Did the King hear of 
 this, it would occasion him more distress than all 
 the lampoons of the scribblers of the town. From 
 Orange he expected double-dealing, despite the 
 congratulations carried to the English Court by 
 William's accomplished and profligate kinsman, 
 
 224
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the Count Zulestein. Ever pleasing in manner, 
 but crafty as the serpent, Zulestein was the ideal 
 minister for a mission which required him to be 
 a courtier at Whitehall and a conspirator at the 
 Cockpit and at the houses of the great nobles, 
 who were now beginning to enliven their treason 
 with a spirit of reckless bravado. 
 
 Events fostered this open display of contempt 
 for the Crown. While men's minds were in a 
 ferment in connection with the malicious rumours 
 about the Prince's birth, James found himself 
 immersed in his famous quarrel with the bishops. 
 Towards the close of the spring of 1688 James had 
 launched his second Declaration of Indulgence. 
 Its terms, put briefly, were that the King, of his 
 own authority, abrogated the Penal Laws. Away 
 with persecution ! Let no rough hand of the 
 minister of an unjust law be stretched forth 
 between the Englishman and his God. Let 
 there be an end to the centuries of religious 
 strife. Let these be the boons purchased by the 
 blood of the martyrs of all the Churches, the 
 blessings vouchsafed the prayers of all good men 
 Peace and Liberty and Love ! 
 
 It was a glorious ideal, realised in another age, 
 under another dynasty. But James was not the 
 man, his methods not the methods for the gospel 
 of a sublime revolution. He declared in Council 
 " that four of his predecessors having attempted 
 
 VOL. i 225 u
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 in vain to establish a general conformity of wor- 
 ship, the Penal Laws against Dissenters having 
 only led to rebellion and bloodshed, he was con- 
 vinced that nothing could conduce more to the 
 peace and quiet of the Kingdom and the increase 
 of trade than an entire liberty of conscience ; 
 it having," he said, " always been his opinion, as 
 most suitable to the principles of Christianity, 
 that no man should be persecuted for conscience' 
 sake, which was not to be forced, and that it never 
 could be to the interest of a King of England to 
 do it." 
 
 Many a long year afterwards George II. voiced 
 the same sentiment when they brought him news 
 that a whirlwind of Irish bravery had scattered 
 the ranks of England at Fontenoy. In his wrath 
 cried George, " Accursed be the laws that have 
 deprived me of these gallant soldiers ! " 
 
 Thus are kings often in the van of thought, 
 chiefs in the cohorts of freedom, while a topsy- 
 turvy fate condemns them to captain the machine 
 of tyranny. James's declaration of liberty of 
 conscience marked another stage on the road 
 to destruction. 
 
 The declaration was just, but it was illegal. 
 It was humane, but illegal ; Christian, but illegal. 
 Always illegal 1 That argument was used to 
 demolish the principalities and powers which 
 battled for the Light in the days of Herod and 
 
 226
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Nero. And in James's day the law, too, pre- 
 vailed. The King was the champion of the 
 modern ideal. Against him was arrayed the cold 
 and blood-stained instrument fashioned by the 
 malice of great men and the ignorance of small 
 ones. " Toleration " was the watchword of the 
 King. For answer they invoked the law. 
 
 James thought little of the law, because he 
 knew the lawmakers. Parliament had during 
 the Restoration epoch sunk to the lowest depths 
 of corruption. It was an arena where victory 
 rested with the deep purse, leadership with the 
 adept in the tactics of bribery. Legislators were 
 the creatures of France, of Holland, or of the 
 Court. There were patriots amongst them, for 
 no land can in any age, however degenerate, escape 
 altogether the solicitude of Providence. There 
 were honest men and religious ones according to 
 their lights to be found in politics. But politics 
 were not of their making. The mould was not 
 in their hands. The law was to the highest 
 bidder in the mart. The theory that the King 
 can do no wrong is still a legal fiction. But in 
 the days of the Stuarts that the King could do 
 no wrong was more than a legal fiction. It was 
 a creed in which the Stuarts at least were fervent 
 believers. For this faith Charles I. died ; for it 
 James lost his Crown, for, like his father, though 
 in pursuit of a different goal, he too would set 
 
 227
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 himself above Parliament and its statutes, and 
 would be himself the lawgiver. Hence the 
 Declaration of Indulgence and the revolt of 
 the bishops. 
 
 The famous seven refused to have it read in 
 the churches. Thus was the Declaration of 
 Indulgence answered with a Declaration of Rebel- 
 lion. Now were the threads spun, the Fates 
 ready to weave a drama worthy of the stately 
 march of the Shakespearian classics. The rebels 
 were the Primate Sancroft, Lloyd of St. Asaph, 
 Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath 
 and Wells, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney 
 of Bristol. The bishops set off to Whitehall to 
 petition the King to dispense them from obedience 
 to his mandate. At Whitehall they found Sun- 
 derland, who immediately introduced them to the 
 King, who read their petition with wrath he could 
 with difficulty govern. 
 
 " This," said the King, " is a standard of 
 rebellion." 
 
 The bishops earnestly protested their loyalty. 
 
 " This," the King repeated like a man dazed, 
 " is a standard of rebellion." 
 
 Dazed he was, for he had stumbled on the van 
 of the army that was to destroy him. Here it 
 was in the Council Chamber. 
 
 Trelawney broke the painful silence. 
 
 " For God's sake, sire," he cried, " do not say 
 ' 228
 
 so harsh a thing to us. No Trelawney can be a 
 rebel." 
 
 The noble prelate spoke with deep emotion, 
 and on his knees awaited the King's reply. The 
 King was moved, as well he might, at seeing the 
 bearer of a name so illustrious in this attitude of 
 profound supplication. But the gentle impulse 
 passed. Perhaps the King saw farther than 
 Trelawney guessed. For, alas for Cornish 
 chivalry ! despite his gallant words, he was 
 " deeply confederate " with William. One of 
 the songs of the Revolution, which is still well 
 remembered, made his name a call to battle: 
 such was the music inspired by a chivalrous 
 race, and such the magic of that ancient house 
 in the bold Duchy. 
 
 After Trelawney 's passionate outburst the pleas 
 of his companions were only the cold platitudes 
 of brave but commonplace men. 
 
 The King spoke the last word. 
 
 " I will be obeyed," thundered the Stuart, his 
 dark brow menacing as the cliffs of his native 
 Scotland when the purple clouds bring the sky 
 down to the rim of the island, and cast angry 
 shadows far out over the oily black of the 
 waters. 
 
 The King spoke truly. The petition was 
 indeed a standard of rebellion. It was dissemi- 
 nated broadcast with other seditious literature, 
 
 229
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 some of which is attributed to the brilliant, 
 malignant, but prudent Halifax, who, when 
 rebellion was brewing, might coin an epigram or 
 point an argument for more reckless spirits to 
 exploit, while he himself was content to enjoy 
 the serene beauties of his country seat, far 
 removed from any temptation to those adven- 
 tures which might mean in the final settlement 
 of affairs the loss of his estates, if not of his 
 head. 
 
 What followed is one of the most familiar 
 episodes in English history. The ordeal of the 
 bishops terminated just as the populace were 
 roused to frenzy by the campaign of libel against 
 the young Prince of Wales, not yet a month 
 old. The legal proceedings had been dilatory. 
 On the very eve of the Prince's birth the 
 bishops had been admitted to bail. This in itself 
 was, to the popular mind, a victory over the 
 tyrant. 
 
 Affrighted by the gathering storm, some of 
 James's councillors advised compromise. The 
 birth of his son was, they said, a time for 
 conciliation, for clemency. They hinted at the 
 golden way of prudence. They would make 
 concessions. They would move slowly. In 
 trying to secure liberty for Dissenters the King, 
 they argued, should try to avoid infringing the 
 liberties of others, even where these latter seemed 
 
 230
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to savour rather of privilege than of equality. 
 But for the King there was no going back. 
 Those around him began to evince signs of panic. 
 But James's will was hardened to adamant by 
 resistance. 
 
 Now was he his father's son in real earnest. 
 The blood of the race that would not be defied 
 was up. He was in the mood in which men 
 lead a forlorn hope. Not for worlds would he 
 alter the plan of battle and have the odds 
 reversed which called for the courage of despair. 
 He would conquer or die. And death it was 
 a lingering death, from a heart broken by the 
 torture of obscurity, of disappointment, of flicker- 
 ing hopes extinguished one by one. His was 
 the slow agony of wrinkles creeping over the 
 face of a famous beauty, not the swift martyrdom 
 which assured Charles of a niche in the Cathedral 
 of the Pitied, where are enshrined the memories 
 of those consecrated to the Heroic by the God 
 of dramatic Chance. 
 
 " Compromise," said James, " lost my father 
 his kingdom and his head. I shall not fall into 
 the same weakness." 
 
 The acquittal of the bishops was assured, for 
 it would have been impossible, without packing 
 a jury, to find twelve men in the land who would 
 return a hostile verdict. It was a drama in 
 which the fiercest passions were aroused, a drama 
 
 231
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 relieved by only one faint gleam of humour. 
 Amongst the jurors was Michael Arnold, brewer 
 to the Palace. Arnold would cheerfully have 
 escaped to his vats from his duty at Westminster 
 HaU. 
 
 " Whatever I do," he said, " 1 am sure to be 
 half ruined. If I say ' Not guilty * I shall brew 
 no more for the King ; and if I say * Guilty ' I 
 shall brew no more for anybody else." 
 
 Had James the nerves of a gladiator he must 
 have trembled now, for the hour had come for 
 judgment. In his own courts he was on trial. 
 The bishops stood at the bar, but the true bar 
 was in St. James's Palace, and behind it stood 
 the King. Curious he should find himself at 
 that palace now, for around its walls in the old 
 days had often surged the clamour of a people 
 roused by his enemies to anger. Again there 
 was the clamour, and this time the direst enemy 
 of the King was James Stuart himself. Hark ! 
 What is that ? . . . Note the deep flush that so 
 suddenly mantled the King's brow. There it is 
 again the cry of a child ! 
 
 That feeble wail reminded him of a scene at 
 Westminster half a century earlier, when a King 
 and his judges stood face to face, and in the end 
 the King's children were orphans, left to expiate 
 their father's folly in the bread of exile. Now 
 what of his own son ? . . . Would he ever have 
 
 232
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to climb the stranger's staircase, and grow weary 
 in his anterooms, pining for a glance from the 
 page-of-honour which would herald his admission 
 to the august Presence ? 
 
 As in a glass darkly the King's prophetic soul 
 must have seen the whole panorama of the infant 
 Prince's cross : the home in a foreign land, the 
 hearth where the fire burned cold because the 
 blaze was fanned by charity, the sword rusting 
 in its scabbard, a Blue Riband of the Garter 
 hanging threadbare from its tarnished hilt ; on 
 the walls a portrait of James II. filling the place 
 of honour, and opposite, smiling sadly from the 
 canvas on her husband, Mary of Modena, and 
 then, shivering by the chilling hearth, a care- 
 worn, aged man, with the impress of sorrow 
 lying heavy on every lineament of his noble and 
 gentle countenance. And this careworn man, 
 alone with the mildewed portraits, alone with his 
 father's sword, and his father's Garter, was the 
 babe whose first cry had echoed through the 
 halls of St. James's ! 
 
 Evening fell, the evening of this eventful 29th 
 of June. Still no tidings from Westminster 
 Hall. . . . Ministers came and went. The King 
 was moody and silent, and with relief he found 
 himself at last alone. He thought he had long 
 since learned stoicism in palace and camp, out 
 in the heyday sowing his wild oats, and in the 
 
 233
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 gloaming with his saintly Queen. But in this 
 crisis his self-complacency had deserted him. He 
 was growing old now. He reckoned his years. 
 He had passed fifty. He had left the summit 
 behind and was facing the valley ; but as, 
 growing older, he marched onwards, a feeling of 
 uncertainty seemed to seize him. On the right, 
 on the left were these chasms, or were they 
 shadows ! In the mist were these spectres or 
 men ! In the defile were these death-dealing 
 giants or trees inviting him to their restful soli- 
 tude ! . . . 
 
 Through the long night the suspense con- 
 tinued. He whispered by the bedside of Mary 
 of Modena while her lady-in-waiting nodded 
 over a book. He tried to smile above the cradle 
 of his sleeping child. He prayed in his oratory 
 long after the last sound of life had ceased within 
 the Palace and the town was silent as the 
 grave. . . . 
 
 Welcome morning dawned at last, and, calling 
 for his horse, the King rode out while yet his 
 subjects slept. Across Hyde Park he spurred, 
 finding relief from his aching brow in the cool 
 air, still soft with the dew. On past the villages 
 of Kensington, and Hammersmith, to the banks 
 of the Thames, and so to his camp at Hounslow. 
 
 The King's spirits rose as he rode. His heart 
 bounded at the brave prospect. The river, glisten-
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 ing in the June sun, streamed like a broad ribbon 
 of silver through fields of green and gold. Through 
 rich foliage he caught sight of villas nestling on 
 velvet lawns. In the deep woods gracious chil- 
 dren were at play. The weather-beaten labourers 
 turned from their teams to watch the King and 
 his gentlemen ride past. In the distance rose 
 Sion House, the seat of the Percys, rising from a 
 vast demesne. Here well he knew every meadow, 
 for as a boy he had played in the lush grasses 
 with his brothers and sisters, and every venerable 
 tree was a friend that had lent him its shade 
 when tired, or its girth to hide him when in their 
 games he sought cover. In those troublous days 
 the Percy was custodian of the Royal children, 
 and to the old grange their unfortunate father 
 often rode from his prison at Hampton Court 
 to forget his anxieties in the pleasure of their 
 society. To these hallowed memories, and many 
 another episode in the history of his beloved 
 England, was this shimmering green of park 
 and woodland and the sparkling silver of the 
 river a noble setting. 
 
 While the King was at Hounslow, his Queen 
 at St. James's heard a strange sound as of voices 
 in angry commotion, which grew louder and drew 
 nearer, swelling at last into a mighty tumult. 
 The Queen had no need to ask what it meant. 
 Her heart told her the bishops had been acquitted, 
 
 235
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 and this was the tide of a people's jubilation swel- 
 ling round the palace of a defeated King. The 
 Queen fled to her child. Peacefully he nestled 
 amongst his pillows, unconscious of the rising 
 storm. 
 
 236 

 
 WILLIAM III. 
 
 p. 236.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 " A UT mine aut nunquam ! " 
 
 <**" The words were William's. Fire there 
 seldom was in the speech of the great soldier. 
 But a sudden conflict of emotions warmed him 
 to an expression of brief but unrivalled eloquence. 
 The chance of his life had come. That " now or 
 never," in its majestic Latin, was for such an 
 emergency the inspired watchword. 
 
 The Orange party in England durst not lose 
 the advantage given them by the events of the 
 last days of June 1688. The day of the acquittal 
 of the bishops was the gift of destiny, their ap- 
 pointed Time. To miss it was to lose the tide 
 which never again would reach the flood. While 
 the anger and enthusiasm of the people were still . 
 therefore at white-heat, an invitation was sent to 
 William to invade the kingdom. It was signed 
 by Danby, Devonshire, Shrewsbury, Compton, 
 Lumley, Russell, and Sydney. No name amongst 
 them stood for spotless patriotism, none for lofty 
 statesmanship, none for matchless leadership in 
 the Senate or for proved wisdom in Council. 
 
 237
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 They told the Prince that nineteen-twentieths 
 of the nation desired his coming. William, 
 doubtless, knew better than to believe them. 
 But likewise none knew better than he that it 
 is the man and the occasion that make a revolu- 
 tion. It is for the people to accept it. 
 
 Devonshire and Shrewsbury were the heads of 
 families with an historic right to be king-makers. 
 Danby was an obscure lawyer, who had won by 
 his wits and his courage a patent of nobility. 
 Neither, however, had sufficed to protect him 
 from making acquaintance with the Tower of 
 London. Now, though no longer young and 
 time had allotted him more than his share of 
 vicissitudes he was seized with the gambling 
 spirit, which makes politics the most uncertain 
 of all sports, the most crushing in its defeats, 
 the most dazzling in its victories. He would 
 risk all, to lose all or double his winnings. In 
 intellect he was the equal of Orange. In dar- 
 ing, the pale and worn lawyer could give points 
 to the most audacious of his military friends. 
 But Danby had no following in Parliament or 
 in the country. His value was the value of the 
 man of brains to him who has employment for 
 them. 
 
 Henry Sydney we know already as a dissolute 
 rake, abandoned to voluptuous indolence, charm- 
 ing to those who wanted to be amused, perilous 
 
 238
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to those who had aught to lose which the splendid 
 beau might covet. 
 
 Compton was the soldier-bishop. He marched 
 about the duties of his holy office as though he 
 had spurs on his heels and a cavalry sabre clank- 
 ing at his side. Promotion for him had come in 
 the form of a bishop's lawn instead of a command 
 in the army, but his reverence was ever more 
 at home on a powerful charger with pistols in 
 the holsters than set upon his episcopal throne 
 crowned with mitre and armed with crozier. 
 
 Russell was of the family of the Earls of 
 Bedford. Like Sydney, he had once belonged 
 to the Household of James. Like Sydney, too, 
 one of his blood had suffered in the chastisement 
 which followed the discovery of the Rye House 
 plot. Most picturesque of Republicans, Algernon 
 Sydney, brother of Henry, had died on the 
 gallows for his convictions. At the same time 
 judgment had fallen on Lord Russell, son of the 
 aged Earl of Bedford. On her knees Lady 
 Russell had supplicated with tears for her hus- 
 band's life. It had been refused by Charles II., 
 for once marble to the entreaties of distressed 
 beauty. Now had the hour come when the 
 Russells and the Sydneys might take their 
 revenge. 
 
 Devonshire was already at war with the Court, 
 so that he, too, in inviting a foreigner to invade 
 
 239
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 his country was not free from the suspicion of 
 being moved by personal antipathies. The noble 
 Cavendish was as proud as Louis XIV., as des- 
 potic as a Stuart. He had created a Court brawl, 
 in which his share could not be forgiven by any 
 king. A man named Colepepper had insulted 
 the Earl at Whitehall. The matter was reported 
 to the King, who forbade the offender the Court. 
 Devonshire soon had reason, however, to feel 
 himself slighted, for Colepepper was pardoned by 
 the monarch and the Royal ban withdrawn long 
 before the Earl had forgiven the affront. 
 
 At this juncture the feud was taken up by the 
 Cavendish's retainers. They carried the war into 
 the enemy's country, making a raid upon Cole- 
 pepper's house and terrifying his family. Caven- 
 dish and Colepepper became for the time the 
 Montagues and Capulets of London. The fiery 
 Cavendish again went to Whitehall to pay his 
 respects to their Majesties, and on whom should 
 his eye light in the drawing-room but the detested 
 Colepepper ? It was an anxious moment for 
 Cavendish's friends. In the haughty noble's eye 
 there was a significant gleam as it rested on his 
 enemy. Colepepper returned the glare with 
 contempt or so thought Cavendish, who re- 
 strained his fury in the Royal presence; but 
 outside the storm broke. The Earl, mad with 
 rage, clapped his hand on his sword-hilt and 
 
 240
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 called upon the other to fight. Colepepper 
 hesitated. What would the King say were he to 
 draw his sword and shed blood under the Royal 
 roof ? While he hesitated the wrathful Caven- 
 dish acted. A smashing blow across the face 
 with his cane was Colepepper's chastisement. 
 Instantly the whole Court was thrown into com- 
 motion. This was sacrilege, rank blasphemy. 
 A lesser man than the Earl of Devonshire, one 
 of the most powerful nobles in the land, would 
 have slept that night in the Tower. As it was, 
 he was cited before the King's Bench, and for his 
 enormity mulcted in a fine of 30,000. Cavendish 
 was rich but 30,000 I It was ruinous. 
 
 Devonshire, however, had an asylum where 
 he was as safe from the King's writ as though 
 he were a Highland laird with a strong- 
 hold in the heart of inaccessible wilds. He 
 retired to Chatsworth. It was an inviolable 
 sanctuary, for an enemy of his house could only 
 enter it at the head of a conquering army. 
 James wanted his soldiers for other purposes 
 than the pursuit of imperious nobles to their 
 castles in the provinces. If fighting there was to 
 be, it should not be with a tenantry, mustering 
 to protect the dignity of their lord from the 
 arrogance of a law to which he was superior, for 
 the simple reason that he was a Cavendish. The 
 fine was never paid. It was not perhaps intended 
 
 VOL. 1 241 R
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 that it ever should. The Earl's pardon was 
 obtained by his mother. 
 
 The venerable lady bore to the Royal presence- 
 chamber invincible title-deeds to the Royal 
 gratitude guarantees of Royal favour which no 
 Stuart could look upon without emotion. 
 
 The Dowager-Countess produced bonds for 
 enormous sums endorsed by Charles I. and 
 Charles II. James looked upon them, and 
 though the might of England was at his back 
 he must have felt a poor man that this gallant 
 race was not enlisted beneath his banner. 
 Generous to their last piece, loyal to the last 
 drop of blood in their veins, fearless beyond the 
 tameless lion of the jungle, what might he not 
 dare with this breed at his right hand ! Walled 
 cities should fall, armies vanish, before the dare- 
 devil who would draw the sword in anger in the 
 galleries of Whitehall. 
 
 The aged supplicant saw the King's emotion, 
 and if she was silent it was because the word she 
 would speak was a magic symbol, a talisman to 
 be invoked, not for the sake of gold, though that 
 gold would fill the Treasury. It was a word to 
 buy the priceless favour of a life, 
 
 " Gainsborough 1 " 
 
 That was the word, the talisman. " Gains- 
 borough ! " There it was that Charles Cavendish, 
 her brother-in-law, had fallen, as behoved one of 
 
 242
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 his line, fighting for the Crown. And James, 
 looking upon the noble dame, remembered ! 
 
 Her errand was accomplished. The Earl was 
 released on terms. But for King James no 
 sword would he ever unsheath. And worse still 
 than the loss of such a friend was the misfortune 
 that should have transformed him into an implac- 
 able enemy. . . . 
 
 Hither bold knight of romance ! On his brow 
 no cloud for wrong done, or for the future 
 solicitude. Let the heralds proclaim his titles to 
 fame, and when they have done you salute the 
 gallant, laughing Shrewsbury. His honours were 
 won in the field of love, amidst the darts shot 
 quivering from lovely eyes in court and mansion, 
 and for his conquests they called him " King of 
 Hearts." A king has a code of his own, and so 
 had His Majesty, Charles Talbot, of Shrewsbury, 
 the twelfth Earl. Rich in hereditary distinctions, 
 in intellect, in the capacity for enjoyment, his 
 domain was the Garden of Pleasure, and his 
 creed was the creed of that ever-elusive appanage. 
 In his veins ran the noblest blood in England, 
 spurring him to gallant deeds, but his heart beat, 
 and his eyes sparkled too, because of a vagrant 
 strain that poisoned all the rest like drops of 
 luscious, languorous, intoxicating elixir. The 
 blood of long generations of cavaliers, ever fore- 
 most in the field, ever faithful at home, mingled 
 
 243
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 in the elegant King of Hearts with that of the 
 frailest of women, the beautiful countess of his 
 chivalrous father. 
 
 With her had fallen in love the Duke of 
 Buckingham, most successful of libertines, and 
 most audacious too. There was a duel ; and 
 Earl Francis lay dead upon the field. As his 
 eyes glazed and fixed in death his Countess stood 
 by the Duke's horse in the glade, clad in man's 
 attire. They say that while the father of her 
 son expired, the fickle beauty opened her arms 
 to the victorious Duke, and turned her sweetest 
 smiles upon one whose hands were dripping with 
 the gore of the gentleman whom once she had 
 loved. The infant grew to manhood. He was 
 a Shrewsbury in the way he won upon men, a 
 Buckingham in his conquests amongst women. 
 His intellect set off his engaging manners ; his 
 manners, his brilliant intellect. He would have 
 conquered more than hearts, but the son was heir 
 to the mother's craze for the wine of life, for the 
 places where the sunbeams danced, chasing away 
 the shadows. 
 
 His father was a Catholic. The young Earl 
 had, however, no partiality for his father's faith. 
 For his edification a disputation was arranged. 
 When it was done he declared against Rome. 
 In an age of rakes he was a true child of the 
 age. Handsome, cultivated, entertaining, a man 
 
 244
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 of the world and a man of taste, William can 
 have derived but small satisfaction from his 
 countenance. Halifax, Nottingham, Godolphin, 
 Rochester, Clarendon these were types of the 
 men the Dutch Prince looked for as allies, men 
 renowned in politics, not heroes of the boudoir 
 or of the gambling tables. 
 
 Halifax, however, was cautious and self- 
 centred. He had no appetite for the Tower, 
 none for the crash of the battlefield. He had 
 waved his hat above his head and led the cheers 
 when the bishops were acquitted. That was the 
 distance he would go to wreak vengeance on the 
 King. In his heart of hearts little did he care 
 whether William stayed or came ; and as for 
 leading a troop, life had sweeter uses than that 
 for the fastidious nobleman. To Nottingham it 
 was not a matter of taste. It was a question of 
 conscience. Nottingham's conscience was one of 
 the political factors of the day. Happy in so 
 rare a possession, the austere Earl never permitted 
 himself to escape from it. He balanced the 
 King's misdeeds against the King's right, and 
 " Don Dismalo," as they called him, much against 
 his will decided in favour of James. 
 
 Rochester and Clarendon, whether from love 
 or a sense of duty, or from motives of self- 
 interest, stood by the King. Neither owed much 
 to James. Having served him loyally, they had 
 
 245
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 been sacrificed through the duplicity of Sunder- 
 land. But now, when the opportunity for 
 revenge presented itself, they refused to set 
 James's one act of folly and ingratitude against 
 the friendship and consideration of years. They 
 were for the King. And so their names were 
 denied to William's cause. Godolphin likewise 
 held aloof. He was false, as almost all those 
 around him were false. He wished, when the 
 Revolution came, to have friends in either camp, 
 and be in a position to ride with either when he 
 should see how flowed the tide of battle. He 
 was one of the last to desert James, but not too 
 late to be unwelcome to William. 
 
 And what of Anne while the conspiracy moved 
 to its climax, and men spoke in parables, fearful 
 lest the walls should hear ? For James was not 
 a dead King yet, but a man of iron will the 
 master of Jeffreys. 
 
 Anne at the Cockpit was passing through 
 days the most anxious in her whole life. She 
 trembled at her own shadow. At every key that 
 grated in the lock, at every bolt shot roughly to 
 its socket, her heart leaped to her mouth. Not 
 for the Crown of England would she stand before 
 the King with her perfidy revealed. One spark 
 of filial sentiment still flickered in her heart, and 
 warned her that she would die of shame and fear 
 should she be summoned to the King's presence 
 
 246
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to see his face turned to flint, and hear herself 
 denounced as traitress from lips as cold as clay. 
 Hence her name was not appended to the invita- 
 tion to the Prince. 
 
 Rumours of the warlike preparations proceed- 
 ing in Holland were, in September, on every 
 man's lips. The King himself, one of the last 
 men to believe what was coming, was no longer 
 blind to the truth. One day Anne presented 
 herself at Court to find her father so agitated 
 that his distress could not be concealed. 
 
 At the spectacle of her father's sufferings, 
 sufferings which she knew were but beginning, 
 some pang of remorse may have touched her 
 breast, for she confided to her uncle, Lord 
 Clarendon, the unhappy plight in which she had 
 discovered him. Clarendon begged of her, in the 
 great calamity which now overshadowed her 
 family, to rise to the obligations of a Princess of 
 England, and the still nobler duties of a daughter. 
 He implored of her to tell her father what no 
 man had the honesty, the courage, to tell him, 
 that his Crown was trembling on his brow, that 
 in city and country the common talk was treason, 
 that it would need the valour of his trustiest 
 officers, the wisdom of his own ablest friends, to 
 save him from the dangers combining to accom- 
 plish his ruin. Clarendon spoke sadly. Hope 
 was dead within him, for who could save a king 
 
 247
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 who would not move a hand to save himself? 
 Anne heard with impatience. Clarendon was in 
 despair, for Anne was his last resource. She 
 was the one person in the world who, by her 
 tears and entreaties, could have crumbled to 
 dust the rock of the King's impregnable 
 obstinacy. 
 
 Perhaps it was too late to stave off ruin. 
 Perhaps the Princess would have wept in vain at 
 her father's feet. But a sign there was that his 
 pride was not impervious to the gathering omens. 
 He ordered the Privy Council to take evidence 
 concerning the birth of his son, so that the truth 
 might be put before the sceptics in a manner to 
 silence unbelief. At the head of the Council 
 the King waited on Anne to present her with 
 copies of the depositions. For a King thus to 
 approach a subject was a touching act of humility. 
 From a father to a daughter it was heroic. A 
 nobler woman would have melted into tears at 
 this act of self-abnegation. Here was the father 
 crucifying his pride to placate his daughter, in a 
 desperate effort to safeguard his son. The trap- 
 pings of State were there to hide, if hide they 
 could, the insult to the King and Queen. There 
 were, besides the Privy Councillors, the great 
 officers of the household of the King and of the 
 Princess, gentlemen-in-waiting and ladies-in- 
 waiting a brave audience for an ordeal which 
 
 248
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the meanest subject in the land might scorn to 
 suffer for a crown ! And this was the James 
 who exclaimed that compromise was the ruin of 
 his father, that unflinchingly he would pursue 
 the straight road on which he had embarked, 
 whithersoever it might end. And Anne accepted 
 the papers from the Council bowing down before 
 her, as though she were a queen and that this 
 act of homage were her right. 
 
 What would not James have given at that 
 moment to see her break through the cold forms 
 of etiquette, and tearing the papers to fragments, 
 cast them on the floor, exclaiming that in her 
 heart were the proofs of her father's honour, that 
 every drop of blood in her veins attested his 
 truth, that to offer her proofs that her brother 
 was her brother was to heap insult on the whole 
 Royal line, and deny to her race one sentiment 
 of chivalry ! Urged by an ungovernable impulse, 
 one could imagine Anne flinging herself into her 
 father's arms, and, overcome at the indignities 
 heaped upon him, forgetting the pomp of Court 
 ceremonial in the first overpowering grief of 
 newly awakened love. But the King, hungering 
 for one word of unrestrained sympathy, heard 
 this formal reply from his idolised Anne : 
 
 " My lords, this was not necessary ; for I have 
 so much duty for the King, that his word is 
 more to me than all these depositions ! " 
 
 249
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Spoken like a diplomatist, Princess. Many 
 of the gentlemen who heard you must have been 
 smitten with admiration, for not Sunderland 
 himself could have surpassed such courtly 
 roguery. 
 
 The King and the Royal procession withdrew, 
 and Clarendon waited on Anne to discover the 
 impression which had been made upon her. 
 Surely there now remained no excuse for sus- 
 picion. But Anne was silent. She would not 
 speak the truth, yet she dare not lie. The de- 
 positions which had been handed to her in State 
 were likewise published to the world. But the 
 world had already made up its mind, and, like 
 the King's daughters, would not be shaken by 
 the testimony of angels. 
 
 There came at this time, when the foundations 
 of the Throne were crumbling away, another 
 proof of James's awakening. Sunderland had 
 cast a spell upon James. While amassing 
 wealth at the expense of France, and conciliating 
 Orange through his wife, this superlative actor 
 was nevertheless the King's beau ideal of a 
 minister. He showered honours on him. He 
 knew him to be accumulating wealth. It was 
 all well-deserved, right trusty Sunderland ! But 
 there were limits to the Royal folly. And 
 though the King was to all seeming stone-blind, 
 yet there are things palpable even to the blind. 
 
 250
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 One of Lady Sunderland's communications to 
 Henry Sydney was intercepted by an enemy 
 and brought to James. The King was dumb- 
 founded. The letter told him all Lady Sunder- 
 land was a spy, Henry Sydney a traitor, and 
 Lord Sunderland. . . . What of Lord Sunder- 
 land ? The Earl and Countess were equal to 
 their misfortune. The lady protested that the 
 letter was a forgery. It was the handiwork of 
 some enemy who, jealous of her place in the 
 Royal favour, would rob her of both place and 
 reputation. The Earl rose to more dramatic 
 heights. With a voice carefully modulated 
 to control his honest emotion, he appealed to 
 the King to remember his unhappy domestic 
 position. 
 
 " Even if this is Lady Sunderland's hand," he 
 said, " that is no affair of mine. Your Majesty 
 knows my domestic misfortunes. The footing 
 on which my wife and Mr. Sydney are is but 
 too public. Who can believe that I would 
 make a confidant of the man who has injured 
 my honour in the tenderest point, of the man 
 whom of all others I ought most to hate ? " 
 
 It was a defence which, coming from an 
 honoured lieutenant, the King did not care to 
 examine too closely. James said no more. But 
 for Sunderland the beginning of the end had 
 come. In the general crash his fall was to be 
 
 251
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the first, but too late to check the consequences 
 of his long career of treachery. One day he 
 was summoned to the Royal presence. No 
 letter was put into his hands, no evidence was 
 adduced, no arguments advanced, no charges 
 made. The King dropped a hint of disloyalty 
 and dismissed his minister. That was all. Sun- 
 derland's energies were not paralysed by his 
 years of deception. He still had the enthusiasm 
 necessary to a crisis, the enthusiasm which gave 
 his lies the colour of immaculate truth. He 
 protested, he reasoned ; with a terrible maledic- 
 tion he invoked Heaven to bear witness to 
 his innocence. If he had sinned, might he be 
 carried a corpse from the sight of the King ! 
 
 Like all men who trust blindly, James, when 
 his faith was shaken, felt himself doubly a victim, 
 the victim of his betrayer and the victim of 
 himself. It was bad enough that Sunderland 
 had sold him. But not so bad as that he had 
 sold himself. He looked back and saw himself 
 day by day meeting this man like a brother. 
 Vain fool that he was not to have learned the 
 worth, in all his years, of a handsome face and 
 fair words. He had sat down to a banquet 
 with robbers, and, assuming them to be gentle- 
 men, had left his purse and his mantle in the 
 ante-chamber. Purse and mantle were gone. 
 They had risen from table now, and, too late, he 
 
 252
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 saw through his comrades. He knew his lesson 
 now ; but in puzzling through it backwards the 
 knowledge had come too late, for the flag of 
 Orange was already broken to the wind, and his 
 ships were streaming over the sea to England. 
 
 253
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 "TN the camp of the King all slept save the 
 -*- sentinels and the traitors, and the rattle of 
 the chains of the troop horses picketed in the 
 cavalry lines was the only sound that disturbed 
 the silence of the November night. 
 
 The chivalry of England were mustered on 
 Salisbury Plain to meet an invader. But when 
 these men's fathers were under arms to en- 
 counter their brethren in defence of King 
 Charles a blither spirit possessed them than 
 now that they were to measure swords with 
 a foreign foe. 
 
 The spirit of gloom hovered over the camp. 
 No snatch of merry song from roystering trooper 
 returning to the lines, and braving in his cups 
 the wrath of the provost-marshal, broke the 
 stillness of the lonely night. The echo of jest 
 and prank over cards and bottle did not guide 
 one to the tents of the younger officers. The 
 shadow of impending disaster was everywhere 
 weighing down the most volatile, damping the 
 most joyous spirits. It was whispered through 
 
 254
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the camp that the King was ill. He had been 
 bleeding copiously from the nose, and was so 
 weak that he could not hope to take the field as in 
 the brave old days when he drew the sword under 
 Turenne. And things more discouraging still 
 were whispered. Treason was in the air. It 
 hung like a miasma round the army. The honest 
 men looked with doubt upon each other. They 
 read parables into plain words, and saw innu- 
 endoes when all was open as noonday. Not 
 so the rogues. They knew one another. They 
 had sold themselves ; and so that their chargers 
 were safe and sound, ready for a dash at a 
 moment's warning to the Williamite lines, they 
 could await the inevitable with equanimity. 
 
 The King was alone in the episcopal palace 
 with his faithful general the Earl of Feversham. 
 The table at which James had just supped with 
 Prince George, Lord Churchill, and a party of 
 his leading officers, was now littered with maps 
 and papers. But the maps stared neglected at 
 the Sovereign and his commander-in-chief. What 
 need had they of maps? The council of war 
 was over. They spoke now of politics rather 
 than of strategy. They were in their own land, 
 amongst soldiers who knew every rood of the 
 country. Never was there a simpler problem in 
 tactics presented to a monarch. Hurl his troops 
 against the enemy. Press home the attack till, 
 
 255
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 hand to hand, Briton and Dutchman wrestled for 
 victory ; and if the gods willed the battle to the 
 stranger, then die like a king fighting for his 
 Crown. Nothing could be simpler. But alas ! 
 heart and nerve failed the doomed King, and 
 the golden moments given him for action were 
 frittered away. 
 
 What secrets were exchanged that night 
 between the King and the Earl can be surmised, 
 for Feversham had the true instinct of a soldier 
 for an honest gentleman. And he knew that 
 close by the Royal pavilion were the quarters of 
 a traitor whose treason was black as ingratitude 
 could make it. 
 
 To the King he dare not mention that name. 
 But it trembled on his lips, and one can picture 
 the Sovereign's impatience as he noted the other's 
 hesitation. And one can pardon the Earl's rigid 
 lips, for the words struggling for utterance would 
 kill a man's honour a murder more atrocious in 
 the eyes of a gallant veteran than a deed of blood. 
 From a chance phrase in a letter of the period 
 one can easily reconstruct the scene : 
 
 " Speak, man 1 " murmured the King implor- 
 ingly rather than in a tone of command, for 
 somehow these latter days had mellowed the 
 imperious note in his voice. 
 
 But Feversham did not speak. If only the 
 King's intuition would help him 1 But when did 
 
 256
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 James's intuition ever help him to recognise an 
 enemy? Nothing but infamy patent to all the 
 world could James interpret aright. . . . Fever- 
 sham, like a good general, would try to escape 
 from his difficulty by a flanking movement. 
 
 " There was Sunderland ..." he would begin. 
 
 " Yes, but Sunderland is in disgrace," would 
 reply the King. " His power for evil is at an 
 end." 
 
 " Yes, sire ; but . . . there are others as near 
 . . . more dear, perhaps." 
 
 The King would look chagrined, as well he 
 might. He had been a fool. He wished others 
 did not see it so clearly. But Feversham was a 
 good friend, if a friend were left to him, if friend- 
 ship there really were, and he must not show 
 pique at his candour. 
 
 " Speak, my dear Feversham. I am tired of 
 vague hints. ... I am ill " ; and ill indeed he 
 was. The bleeding at the nose, which had con- 
 tinued for three days, had drained him of all 
 vigour, and left him for the nonce a wreck 
 hollow of eye, feeble of voice, more fitted for an 
 invalid's retreat than to give ardour to an army 
 over which was creeping the lethargy of despair. 
 
 A moment's silence. Then a name passed 
 Feversham's lips. 
 
 The King sprang to his feet. 
 
 " Again that name I ... Did I hear aright ? " 
 
 VOL. i 257 s
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 " Churchill ! " cried Feversham doggedly, in a 
 voice that might be heard by the guards outside. 
 
 The King laughed mockingly. 
 
 " Churchill, my page of long ago ! . . . Gallant 
 Jack ! . . . Bah ! He is my son. I made him. 
 As soon would I think of suspecting my daughter 
 Anne." 
 
 "I beg you, sire, to have Churchill arrested. 
 He is a traitor." 
 
 " This is madness, Feversham. Your anxiety 
 about us has unbalanced your judgment. If 
 Churchill be a traitor, then on Salisbury Plain 
 to-night there sleeps not an honest man." 
 
 Feversham had served for many a year in the 
 Royal household, had risked his life for the Crown 
 on the battlefield, and now, strong in the con- 
 sciousness of his own loyalty, strong in the 
 knowledge that the flight of brief days would 
 prove the truth of his words, the sincerity of 
 his appeal, he flung himself on his knees before 
 the King. With passionate entreaties he begged 
 of James to secure Churchill. He begged as 
 though it were his own life and fortune that 
 were at stake. But to all his prayers there was 
 but one answer : " Of Churchill I can believe 
 nothing ill." 
 
 Oh, that blind, unreasoning obstinacy against 
 which nothing could prevail ! For two hours the 
 conflict lasted, the battle of King and general, 
 
 258
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the one fighting in the cause of prudence, the 
 other in the cause of chivalry and loyalty ; and 
 in the end the King was as immovable as ever. 
 
 " Of Churchill I can believe nothing ill. . . . 
 Good-night, my trusty Feversham; good-night." 
 
 And with heavy steps, as though with an effort 
 he held himself erect, the King dragged himself 
 to his bedchamber. 
 
 " Who goes there ? " 
 
 The challenge rang out on the morning air 
 from a patrol of the Orange army, which by now 
 had thrown out its advanced posts to Wincanton, 
 and scoured the country with flying pickets still 
 farther'east. 
 
 Along the road in the grey light rode wearily 
 two men, whose uniforms and spirited chargers 
 betokened high rank. They heard the challenge 
 and saw the levelled muskets, which gave it 
 ominous import. 
 
 Jaded indeed he was if the younger man did 
 not laugh. It would be the true answer of his 
 temperament to the challenge and the muskets. 
 The other was a soldier, not a devil-may-care 
 child of love, a man intent on high enterprises, 
 with a laugh ready only when it had its proper 
 place in the unravelling of his schemes. He 
 answered : " Friends ! " 
 
 " Advance and give the countersign ! " 
 259
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 And the pair trotted slowly forward. There 
 was no need for haste now. The deed was done ; 
 their vows were broken. They were deserters in 
 the camp of the enemy. 
 
 During the night Lord Churchill and his com- 
 panion, the young Duke of Grafton for the 
 horsemen were none other had ridden out from 
 Salisbury and sought the camp of William. 
 There Churchill had a welcome which did credit 
 to the soldierly spirit of his new comrades. They 
 made use of him, but they despised him. General 
 Schomberg received the distinguished deserter 
 with a taunt which would have killed a man 
 of finer temper. 
 
 " Sir," said the gallant soldier of fortune, " you 
 are the first deserter of the rank of a lieutenant- 
 general I ever saw ! " 
 
 To the Duke of Grafton, son of Charles II. 
 and Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, it 
 was an amusing adventure. As an officer he 
 was of small value to his uncle, and as little to 
 his kinsman of Orange. But rank and fortune, 
 a gay spirit, a sharp tongue, and debonnaire 
 manners always have a charm, which, if they 
 do not win battles, entertain the camp and 
 have for the soldiery a greater attraction than 
 qualities more sterling. His impudent repartee 
 on an historic occasion illustrates the easy, careless 
 temper of Grafton. When nobles and bishops 
 
 260
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 petitioned James to call a free Parliament and 
 open negotiations with the Prince of Orange the 
 Duke was one of the signatories. 
 
 To him the King said, " You know nothing 
 about religion, you care nothing about it, and 
 yet, forsooth, you must pretend to have a 
 conscience." 
 
 " It is true, sire," answered Grafton, with keen 
 relish of the joke, " that I have very little con- 
 science ; but I belong to a party which has a 
 great deal ! " 
 
 Heartily must Grafton have enjoyed the 
 humiliation put upon Churchill by the grizzled 
 war-dog who commanded William's soldiery. 
 In the Orange camp Grafton found a young 
 man after his own heart in the person of 
 Edward, Viscount Cornbury, eldest son of Lord 
 Clarendon, and, like himself, a cousin of the 
 Princess Anne. 
 
 The distinction of having been the first deserter 
 from the King belongs to Cornbury. He had 
 been sent on to Salisbury with the van of the 
 Royal army while yet the King remained behind 
 at Whitehall. Cornbury, though only a colonel, 
 found himself, therefore, by the connivance of his 
 fellow- conspirators, commanding officer for a 
 brief space of the King's camp. The Viscount 
 rose to his opportunity for earning indelible 
 infamy. He paraded three regiments of cavalry 
 
 261
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 and marched them westwards. The men were 
 in high spirits, going out to engage the enemy, 
 as they thought, under this enterprising young 
 chief. They reached Blandford, then Dorchester, 
 then Axminster. 
 
 This was indeed a reconnaissance which seemed 
 to lead far from Salisbury, far from the banner 
 of the King. The more experienced officers 
 began to feel apprehensive. Mustering up 
 courage, they approached Cornbury, and begged 
 to know whither they were being led. Cornbury 
 was a shallow-witted fellow, who owed all his 
 honours to his relationship to the Princess Anne. 
 But his intellect was spurred to resourcefulness 
 by his danger. He explained that he had been 
 ordered to make a night attack on an Orange 
 post at Honiton. 
 
 His brother officers were dismayed. To their 
 military instincts it sounded a ludicrous affair, 
 bound to end in disaster. Cornbury was re- 
 quested to produce his orders. That demand 
 crushed his daring scheme for riding into 
 William's camp with the flower of the Royal 
 army. He was glad, therefore, to steal away 
 with a handful of men to the Dutch lines, while 
 the gallant fellows he had so nearly betrayed 
 returned to Salisbury to report that a kinsman 
 of the King had shown the road to the King's 
 enemy. 
 
 262
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 When news of Cornbury's desertion reached 
 James he was still at Whitehall. It was a 
 stunning blow. Men who fight on to the end 
 and win or die right royally, kings in victory, 
 kings in defeat, kings even in fetters, are ever 
 spared this blow of all others the most over- 
 whelming of being betrayed by one's own 
 household. 
 
 Cornbury was the premier renegade. He was, 
 perhaps, of all his connections held in the least 
 regard by the King. And with the perfect 
 dramatic touch which Fate alone imparts, the 
 last exquisite pain which completed the agony 
 was inflicted by Anne, the dearest of them all. 
 
 A memorable scene was enacted in Whitehall 
 when James heard of Cornbury's treachery. All 
 the leading officers then in London were sum- 
 moned to the Palace. Bravely they trooped in, 
 Churchill and Grafton leading the way, at their 
 heels Kirke and Trelawney and many others. It 
 was a mournful yet a stirring sight. Handsome 
 Churchill, reckless Grafton, dour Trelawney, and 
 Kirke with the murderous face of that type of 
 soldier who knows neither fear, nor love, nor 
 pity. His was a name to make men's blood run 
 cold. He was to the army what Jeffreys was to 
 the bench ; and looking upon him now in that 
 group of officers bowing before the King, one 
 imagines that his comrades stand a little apart 
 
 263
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 from him ; not much, for Kirke was not a man 
 to be trifled with. But often in a hair's breadth 
 there is a wide world of significance. 
 
 The King was too overcome for a moment to 
 speak ; but when he recovered command of 
 himself, deep feeling moved him to strike a note 
 of Royal chivalry. 
 
 Was there amongst them any man who, for 
 conscientious reasons, was averse to drawing the 
 sword in his service ? Then let him resign his 
 commission. Sorry he would be to lose a 
 gentleman amongst them all. But they had 
 reached a stern pass. Before taking another 
 step let them be blunt Englishmen, and fair as 
 man to man. If they would choose a road that 
 was not his, then let them do so. But as 
 English gentlemen, as English cavaliers, in the 
 name of God let them be worthy of their blood, 
 of their cloth, of their country. . . . 
 
 Rising to his full height, throwing back his 
 head, glancing over them with something of the 
 fire of his soldierly youth, he exclaimed : 
 
 " As gentlemen, as soldiers, I adjure you that 
 there be no other Cornbury ! " 
 
 Then up spoke Churchill. He would shed the 
 last drop of his blood for his master ; and he 
 turned to his companions as though he would 
 challenge one amongst them to forswear his true 
 allegiance. 
 
 264
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Grafton repeated the challenge in his own 
 audacious way. He, too, would die for the 
 King his uncle. 
 
 The other traitors were not less bold in their 
 deception. They all protested their devotion to 
 their Sovereign. Heaven heard it all and saw 
 their hearts, and not one amongst them dropped 
 dead with the lie on his lips as a warning to his 
 companions. 
 
 And then they trooped out as bravely as they 
 had come, to take the road to Salisbury, the 
 straight road, as we have seen, to the camp of 
 Orange. 
 
 At the defection of Churchill the unhappy 
 King was smitten with panic. Churchill, the 
 ablest of his captains, the young friend he loved, 
 was a host in himself. Immediately he ordered 
 a retreat, and retired to Andover. There he 
 supped with Prince George and the young 
 Duke of Ormonde. 
 
 It was a funereal meal, for the guests were 
 pledged to betray the man with whom they were 
 breaking bread. The King spoke of traitors 
 and treachery. It was the topic of the hour. 
 Nothing was so urgent or so opportune. Of 
 Churchill, perhaps, he could not speak. The 
 name would choke him. But if it never passed 
 his lips, one may be sure it haunted his aching 
 brain. From Grafton better could not be 
 
 265
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 expected. The Stuart blood ran in his veins. 
 But in his veins, too, there ran the Villiers 
 strain, for his mother was the kinswoman of 
 the tribe who gave to the Orange household 
 Elizabeth, and to the Cockpit Lady Fitz- 
 harding. 
 
 But if the King's thoughts turned to persons 
 whose names he would not utter, he could 
 dissemble his torture by diverting the conver- 
 sation to the Princess Anne, lonely but faithful 
 in the great wilderness of Whitehall with the 
 unhappy Queen. 
 
 While they supped from time to time a courier 
 arrived from the army, always with the same 
 tidings. It was not that English blood had been 
 spilled in some desperate fight ; it was not that 
 his best friends, his familiar comrades, had fallen. 
 That was grief reserved by fate for happier kings 
 than James. The news was always worse than 
 death always treachery! One was gone, and 
 another, and another, until it looked as if 
 Whitehall had been transferred to the Orange 
 camp. 
 
 The King was perhaps too ill to realise what 
 all this meant. There comes a time when some 
 anodyne of Nature numbs the heart to pain and 
 blunts the intelligence. 
 
 The King and Ormonde heard the news in 
 gloomy silence. But not so Prince George. 
 
 266
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 What elfish sprite tempted the foolish man to 
 talk that night ? The King did not expect it 
 from him. Neither his wit nor his wisdom was 
 of the order to make them eager for his words. 
 
 " Est-il possible ? " was George's comment as a 
 traitor's name was announced, like a visitor to 
 some strange levee. 
 
 " Est-il possible ? " he repeated again and 
 again. 
 
 So the solo went on, always on the same note, 
 growing farcical in its inane monotony at the 
 supreme moment when a dynasty was tottering 
 to its final collapse. 
 
 A shadow of a smile flickered on the King's 
 ashen lips at this parrot-cry of sympathy famine- 
 stricken for words. He seldom smiled now. He 
 had forgotten how to laugh. But this was 
 surpassingly ridiculous. It was droll enough to 
 set a man of steady nerves and bounding pulse 
 and clear brain into roars of laughter. The 
 King looked at Ormonde. His Majesty could 
 not preserve a straight face. In presence of 
 such a comical effusion of sympathy men of 
 sense were brothers, linked by the freemasonry 
 of a common appreciation of the grotesque, and 
 Ormonde smiled too. 
 
 At length the mourning feast was over. The 
 King rose, and with a subdued but kindly 
 " Good-night " to his faithful friends, all the 
 
 267
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 more precious because so few remained, he 
 retired. 
 
 Again the clatter of horses' hoofs. 
 
 What was that ? A courier perhaps. But 
 James was too weary, too broken in spirit to 
 inquire. He was ill and tired. Nothing mattered 
 much. There was no urgency about anything. 
 It was all for a Crown, and of what value was a 
 Crown ! . . . He slept at last, this sorely tried, 
 heart-sick King, and with the sun awoke from 
 his troubled slumber. Then they told him. 
 
 Ormonde was gone, and with him the husband 
 of his beloved Anne. 
 
 Then the King made the only jest of these 
 days of wrath. 
 
 "What!" he exclaimed, "' Est-il possible V 
 gone too ! " 
 
 268
 
 
 From a tihotograuh by Kmery Walker, after the painting in the National Portrait Gallery 
 by Sir Godfrey Kneller. 
 
 JAMES II. 
 
 p. 268.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 T NTO St. James's Park at dead of night strode 
 - two men equipped for riding, as one might 
 see despite the heavy cloaks drawn closely around 
 them as protection from the rain, which came 
 pelting down in blinding sheets. 
 
 At Charing Cross they had left their hackney 
 coach to make this adventure into the pitch dark- 
 ness of the Park, which at this hour was none too 
 safe for lonely excursions ; nor in such weather 
 was it any too pleasant, for its avenues, lashed by 
 the storm, were cut into quagmires, in which the 
 cloaked pedestrians sank over the ankles of their 
 riding-boots. 
 
 Without a word they trudged on, until right 
 before them appeared in silhouette the Palace 
 of Whitehall. Then they halted, and, taking 
 shelter as well as they could beneath a tree, 
 watched the Royal Palace, whose outlines, un- 
 relieved by a solitary light, were traced through 
 the blackness like a vast palace of mystery. 
 
 Soaked almost to the skin from the drenching 
 storm, and chilled to the bone from standing in the 
 
 269
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 mire, they had no imagination for the romance 
 of the scene in which they found themselves. 
 There was no glamour for them in the inky 
 sky, from which battlements, towers, and gables 
 seemed suspended, the guardian ramparts of a 
 city where darkness and silence for ever reigned, 
 where life was a dream and sound there was none. 
 
 " A light ! Thank Heaven ! ... It is a signal," 
 would exclaim one. 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " would repeat the other. 
 
 The rain came pelting down more fiercely than 
 ever, imparting fervour to their gratitude. 
 
 The welcome light flickered in the Cockpit. 
 It was a signal that the vigil was nearly ended. 
 
 The light appeared and disappeared and re- 
 appeared. To those who could read the sign it 
 told its own tale as it flashed from the windows 
 of the Princess Anne's private apartments into 
 the blinding storm without. It told of an ex- 
 cited mistress just risen from her couch trembling 
 and expectant, of flurried ladies-in-waiting racing 
 to and fro for this thing so treasured and for that, 
 all the while with everybody's heart in every- 
 body's mouth, fingers twitching with nervousness 
 too great for nimble obedience, and feet more rest- 
 less than efficient in the haste of breathless agitation. 
 
 The two men listened intently. The wind 
 hurtling through the trees, and the rain splash- 
 ing on withered and soddened leaves, deadened 
 
 270
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 every sound. They thought they heard faintly 
 the treble of women's voices. A door opened at 
 last. Now they were sure their hearing did not 
 deceive them, because they could see the panel 
 of light, the only bright thing against the con- 
 fused tumuli of blackness. A lady stepped into 
 the luminous panel. It was a figure gracious 
 enough to cheer the watchers out in the inhos- 
 pitable night. It was the Princess Anne. They 
 might have seen her shiver as the rain, caught up 
 by the storm, was driven into her teeth, one gust 
 almost saturating her light attire ; for, unused to 
 such adventures, Anne had thought more of 
 appearances than of the most suitable raiment in 
 which to brave a November storm. Into the 
 light from outside the threshold stepped two 
 other ladies ; they carried cloaks and wraps, 
 and hastily they enfolded the Princess more 
 securely against the night. Then the lights went 
 out. The watchers knew the door was closed, 
 and that the King's daughter had begun her flight. 
 Descending the flight of private stairs, which 
 some time before Anne had caused to be erected 
 from her private apartments into the Park, and 
 accompanied by Lady Churchill, the latter 's maid, 
 and Lady Fitzharding, the Princess hurried for- 
 ward to the assignation. At the same time from 
 out of the shelter of the trees advanced the two 
 cavaliers. They threw back their cloaks and 
 
 271
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 raised their laced hats, revealing themselves as 
 Compton, Bishop of London, and Charles Sack- 
 ville, Earl of Dorset. 
 
 It was no time for compliments. Whitehall 
 still held trusty servants of the King. Even in 
 the Cockpit, not many yards away, there were 
 men and women who if they knew of the treachery 
 afoot would alarm the Palace, and Anne would 
 find herself a prisoner, where an hour or two 
 before she had been little less than a Sovereign. 
 With whispered words the party turned their 
 backs upon the Cockpit towards Charing Cross. 
 
 It was a short, forced march, but a rough one. 
 At every step they sank over their ankles in the 
 soft earth. The Princess's spirits rose with the 
 excitement of this novel battle with wind and 
 rain as she followed in the steps of all the Royal 
 ladies who, down along through the centuries, 
 had crept at night from their bowers to win a 
 page in the annals of romance. 
 
 Struggling forward more vigorously, talking a 
 trifle more loudly as the distance between them 
 and the Palace increased, the Princess at last met 
 with a mishap which for a moment was as though 
 the skirmishers of an army had been driven back 
 on the main body. The advance was checked. 
 A council of war was held, for the Princess had 
 lost a shoe. 
 
 Oh, dear 1 Oh, dear ! where was that shoe a 
 272
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 beautiful high-heeled shoe, lined with silk, with 
 tapering instep, and dainty toe embroidered with 
 deft stitching ? Oh, yes, here it is ! But alas ! 
 no longer a dainty shoe, for the high heel is gone, 
 buried away somewhere in the mire of the Park ; 
 and if this is silk lining it no longer glistens with 
 the fine lustre given it by some famous loom of 
 Lyons, for the inside is full of the damp clay that 
 made captive the heel. It is a worthless shoe, 
 save as a relic to some courtier who knows his 
 courtly trade, or to a gallant who would sell his 
 life for such a thing, though mayhap he would 
 prefer a piece of ribbon fresh and gay or a scrap 
 of filmy lace. 
 
 Down poured the rain ; but if ever wit, and 
 gallant and haughty gentleman was superior to 
 the batteries of unkind fortune it was Charles 
 Sackville. Amongst the men who had been 
 sparkling blades of the Restoration Lord Dorset 
 stood alone. In the school of profligacy he at 
 least had learned something. When his devoirs 
 had been paid to vice and frivolity, he remained 
 superior to his follies. Sydney was a rake to the 
 end. James was the victim of an eternal war, in 
 which his soul was alternately ravaged by angels 
 and demons. Sunderland grew into a gambler 
 noted for his greed, Talbot into a bully, Jermyn 
 into a place-man, and so on with all that rattling 
 company. 
 
 VOL. i 273 T
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 But Dorset, if he did not himself learn to 
 be wise, learned to value wisdom and to appre- 
 ciate it. His sins were stepping-stones to grace ; 
 and Dorset as a fellow of years and sense was, 
 unlike his early associates, more charming than 
 in the days when he beat the watch and laid 
 siege to the heart of Mistress Nell. For Nell 
 Gwynne loved Charles, Earl of Dorset, before 
 she won her meed of the Merrie Stuart's abound- 
 ing affections. And grateful for patronage which 
 advanced her fortunes, as poor Nell understood 
 the term, she always called him her " Charles the 
 First." This was long ago, however. Dorset was 
 no longer the bold and wicked knight of Nell's 
 riotous novitiate to fame. He was a middle-aged 
 man, to whom a runaway princess might safely 
 entrust her honour, even if a bishop were not by 
 to bless and countenance her confidence. 
 
 But the Princess has one foot unshod I Poor 
 Anne ! a sorry portrait of dignity you present in 
 the pitch dark amidst the mire of St. James's 
 Park under the walls of Whitehall, with the 
 clouds wide open pouring on your foolish head 
 torrents of rain. With a hand on Dorset's arm 
 she hopped along on one foot. Dorset laughed. 
 His lordship had a perfect appreciation of the 
 ridiculous. He would have laughed if it were 
 a funeral procession. It was delicious. Anne 
 hopping the whole way from the Palace to 
 
 274
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Charing Cross would make the occasion a memor- 
 able pilgrimage. They were all wet to the skin 
 already. With Anne setting the pace they would 
 however have time to get dry, supposing the storm 
 abated, before reaching their destination. Anne 
 laughed too. In her mirth there was perhaps a 
 hint of hysteria. But the Earl, thankful for the 
 mood, encouraged it. Through the storm Sarah 
 Churchill, trudging angrily behind, could perhaps 
 hear a monologue something of this kind delivered 
 with playful spirit : 
 
 " Well hopped, madam ! . . . Mind that 
 pool. . . . Egad, you're into it right up to 
 your knees. . . . Ahem ! ankles ! . . . Put 
 spring into it, madam. . . . Lean on me. . . . 
 Well over, indeed ! That was a yawning gulf. 
 . . . The other shoe gone. . . . The Lord split 
 me, but I never. . . . Your shoemaker is a 
 Papist, I'll pledge my oath. . . . Here's a hole, 
 madam, deep enough to bury a bishop. . . . 
 Where's your waist, madam ? ... In this infernal 
 darkness one can see nothing pleasing. . . . 
 Pardon my arm, but this is a chasm to be taken 
 flying. . . . Now for the hop of your life. 
 There!" 
 
 A little scream from Anne. The hop of her 
 life was a failure. 
 
 " La, madam, what is it ? " and Sarah, hurry- 
 ing to her mistress's side, would glare at Dorset, 
 
 275
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 for her soaking garments would not assist the 
 termagant lady-in-waiting to laughter. But there 
 was the warlike bishop ready with his pistols for 
 any villain who might dare to interrupt their 
 progress. 
 
 There was, however, no villain in this comedy, 
 at least none that the bishop could recognise. 
 Following the Princess's eyes, they saw her shoe- 
 less foot cased in a miry silk stocking, and the 
 whole company even Sarah's waiting-maid in 
 the background joined in a sympathetic " Oh, 
 madam ! " Dorset leading the chorus in a voice 
 blended of pity and merriment. 
 
 Anne's shoeless foot was not only wet, it was 
 getting a mud bath. The Earl was on his knee 
 in a moment. The dainty foot with the dripping 
 wet stocking of silk stained with the soddened 
 earth was made captive by the gallant Dorset, 
 who substituted his long leathern glove for the 
 vagabond shoe. 
 
 Now was Anne equipped for the march, and 
 all etiquette being banished by this piece of 
 comedy, the Earl, half carrying the Princess, 
 they hurried forward to Charing Cross. There 
 the ladies were bundled into the coach, and, 
 accompanied by Dorset and the bishop, they 
 were driven to Aldersgate Street, where Compton 
 had his private house. The City was, however, 
 too near to Whitehall to be an agreeable place of 
 
 276
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 sojourn. The bishop's house was a convenient 
 station at which to get a little refreshment and 
 rest, and what was still more urgently needed, 
 a change of attire. When they again took the 
 road Compton was no longer the cloaked ecclesi- 
 astic. All disguise was thrown off, and in buff- 
 coat, jack-boots, and broad-sword he was again 
 the life-guardsman, military chief of the little 
 party which now set out for Copt Hall, Dorset's 
 seat in Waltham Forest. The Princess's destina- 
 tion was Nottingham. The greater portion of 
 the journey was made on horseback. Haste was 
 everything, and a journey by coach over the 
 roads of the period could not be accomplished 
 at a speed which would allay the Princess's 
 apprehensions. The only alternative was to ride 
 on a pillion behind a gentleman, horses being 
 hired along the road as the party required them. 
 A famine in horseflesh seems to have fallen at 
 this time on Leicester. Not a steed in the town 
 could be found to carry cavalier and lady. This 
 was nearly as bad as that other check in St. James's 
 Park, when the storm left her barefoot, and the 
 situation was only saved by Dorset's good- 
 humoured gallantry. Now there came to the 
 rescue a very different type of cavalier. Of 
 all the chivalry of the good town of Leicester 
 the Bayard was a mercer, and Bayard's fat 
 grey mare, broad of back, short of limb, 
 
 277
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 large of head, and very sober, was the steed 
 offered for the Royal service. Mettle the 
 Princess's palfrey had none. But the mercer's 
 simple and sturdy rule had taught her ways more 
 sagacious than were ever the dowry of a mare of 
 purest Arab blood. When the time came for her 
 to be burdened she made obeisance on her knees, 
 and in this position waited for gentleman and 
 Princess to mount. The mercer was so corpulent 
 he could get into the saddle in no other way. 
 Thus it came about that a peculiarity which had 
 hitherto been the occasion of much amusement 
 to the apprentices of Leicester, and of irritation to 
 the prosperous mercer, became now a reason for 
 loyal pride to himself and his family, while it 
 justified the everlasting malignity of slimmer 
 citizens, whose lean hacks had robbed their 
 masters of a place in history. 
 
 At the rendezvous at Nottingham Anne found 
 herself the centre of a group of prominent noble- 
 men and gentlemen, all eager to secure her favour, 
 to which they now attached a degree of worth, 
 more gratifying to the Royal lady's vanity than 
 to their own acumen. This would apply rather 
 to the country gentlemen than to noblemen like 
 Northampton, Devonshire, and Chesterfield, who 
 here welcomed the fugitives. Some of the simpler 
 folk may even have imagined that the turmoil 
 was to end in Anne becoming the Sovereign. 
 
 278
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The militia and yeomanry gathered round her 
 with enthusiasm, and it was with a considerable 
 military force that she continued her adventures. 
 
 It was a triumphal progress from Nottingham 
 to Leicester. But on the Princess's return to 
 the friendly mercer's town an incident occurred 
 which gave to the army a sullen princess. It 
 took place in the Princess's drawing-room. 
 Compton, in the presence of Anne, and in the 
 hearing of all the gentlemen present, called upon 
 Chesterfield to attend a meeting in the afternoon 
 in the service of Her Highness. 
 
 " I am here to protect the Princess," replied 
 Chesterfield in effect, " but I must beg not to be 
 publicly summoned to conferences without having 
 first been consulted privately in the matter." 
 
 Devonshire, who stood by, took upon himself 
 to answer Chesterfield. 
 
 " I thought," he said, " that Lord Chesterfield 
 had been previously acquainted that the purpose 
 of the Princess was to have an association entered 
 into to destroy all the Papists in England in case 
 the Prince of Orange should be murdered by any 
 of them." 
 
 Every eye there was turned on Devonshire, 
 Chesterfield, and Compton. The soldier-bishop, 
 purple with rage, was ready to fell his adversary, 
 and only restrained his anger out of deference for 
 her in whose presence he had excited this quarrel. 
 
 279
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 A sneer curled Devonshire's lips. If James 
 was the first to suffer the loss of his head through 
 such an association, so much the better. He had 
 patronised Colepepper, and a Cavendish's mal- 
 evolence, if slow to be aroused, was not quickly 
 assuaged. Chesterfield, calm and stern, spoke 
 with ease and deliberation. His mind was made 
 up. He would not join a murder society. He 
 was for the Prince of Orange. He had been 
 bred up with the Prince. He knew him, he 
 would dare aver, better than any gentleman in 
 that room, and he knew him to be a gallant 
 soldier who would find an organisation for 
 massacring innocent citizens little to his fancy. 
 
 " And," concluded Chesterfield, " I, at all 
 events, shall none of it." 
 
 That was the beginning of the end of this 
 proposal, which, made in cold blood in the 
 presence of the Princess, takes one's breath away. 
 Anne seems to have heard it with approval. 
 With open-eyed astonishment that levee of 
 English gentlemen looked from Anne to Caven- 
 dish, Cavendish to Compton, Compton to 
 Chesterfield. They could not believe their 
 senses. They were not out for murder. They 
 were soldiers, they hoped they were patriots. 
 Catholic gentlemen were their friends, ate at 
 their tables, rode with them in the chase. Many 
 of them had Catholic kinsmen. All of them had 
 
 280
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 a Catholic king. Assuredly they did not want 
 to shed the blood of Papists save in a fair field, as 
 behoved the sons of cavaliers. Almost to a man 
 they were with Chesterfield, and the infamous 
 proposal perished of contempt. 
 
 Very angry with the noble friend of the Prince 
 of Orange, who had baulked her in this enterprise, 
 Anne set out for the country in possession of the 
 invaders, where Prince George, well satisfied 
 with the success of the plans they had matured 
 at the Cockpit, looked for her coming. 
 
 And now let us return and find the Cockpit on 
 the morning following Anne's flight, with the 
 dreary Park all leafless and draggled after the 
 lashing of the storm. 
 
 The dripping trees spread their arms to the late 
 autumn sun. Through the miry avenues pedes- 
 trians came and went. In and out through White- 
 hall wandered couriers, and officers, and loungers. 
 The King was away in his camp, at the head of 
 his soldiers, and a spirit of listlessness pervaded a 
 scene where usually all was bustle and animation. 
 
 Suddenly a woman's screams rang out over the 
 Palace gardens. The screams grew louder. The 
 voices multiplied. It was not a frightened maid. 
 It was not a wench startled by a mouse or a 
 mischievous page. Scream followed scream. It 
 was a panic. It was a fire in the Cockpit, or 
 murder, or worse or ... 
 
 281
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 How the loungers rushed to this festival of 
 excitement, and for a rich reward ! 
 
 Ladies in tears, with toilets all disarranged, 
 raced from the Cockpit and shrieked like 
 creatures possessed as they flew towards the 
 Royal apartments. Like mad women they ran, 
 wringing their hands, their yells ringing through 
 the alleys and across the courts and lawns. 
 
 " The Princess ! . . . Oh, the Princess ! . . . the 
 Princess ! " they cried. The soldiers on guard 
 dashed towards the Cockpit, Lord Craven at their 
 head, sword in hand. But there was no assassin 
 to slay while Royal blood still dyed his hands, 
 no conspirator to arrest. It was only that the 
 Princess's chamber was empty. And his lord- 
 ship could only question the sentinels as to what 
 they had seen or heard. While he asked questions 
 a hundred lying rumours had already spread 
 through London. The libellers had for months 
 previously educated the people to believe that 
 Mary of Modena struck the King. Now they 
 said that her violence had driven Anne from the 
 Palace, that this unhappy English Princess was 
 an outcast because of the firebrand Italian. The 
 women put their heads together and nodded and 
 whispered. 
 
 "... Soon to become a mother," one might 
 be heard to say. 
 
 " Poor Anne ! " another would reply, " to be
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 left at such a time at the mercy of a foreign 
 devil with the temper of a virago whom no 
 Petruchio could tame." 
 
 The rumoured state of Anne's health was as 
 much a lie as the other stories. It was apparently 
 circulated to increase the sympathy of the 
 populace for the truant daughter, and exasperate 
 them still more against her unfortunate father 
 and stepmother. 
 
 While lies passed from lip to lip, news reached 
 London that Prince George had set his wife the 
 example of treachery. And while Londoners 
 poured into the streets to gossip over this wrath 
 that had fallen in such heavy measure on their 
 Sovereign's house, the King himself, weak with 
 illness, stained with travel, rode into the court- 
 yard at Whitehall. He saw the commotion, the 
 looks of blank despair that had followed the 
 shrieks of the panic-stricken women. 
 
 " What is it ? " he demanded. 
 
 They looked at one another dumb. . . . Who 
 amongst them would dare to say it ? 
 
 " Speak ! " he commanded. And as he still was 
 King they could not disobey and spare him. Then 
 they told him that his beloved Anne was gone. 
 
 A cry as though he were stabbed to the heart 
 escaped him. 
 
 " God help me," he moaned; " my own children 
 have forsaken me ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 OHELTERING as well as she could under 
 the hoary walls of Lambeth church, a poor 
 woman, with a child clasped to her bosom, stood 
 on the bank of the Thames in the bitter cold of 
 a December night. As the cutting wind blew 
 over the swollen river she drew more closely 
 around her the threadbare cloak which betokened 
 her poverty, striving to protect the sleeping 
 infant from the icy blast. 
 
 In the background were the villas of rich 
 merchants of the City and of Southwark, the 
 lights glowing warmly behind the casements at 
 that late hour, showing that by many a fireside 
 the spirit of Christmas rejoicing had already been 
 kindled, and that old-time customs were being 
 honoured, though Merrie England had fallen 
 upon days of tumult. 
 
 Rising above the villas were here and there 
 mansions of greater dignity, some of them the 
 abodes of noblemen, while close at hand was an 
 inn where travellers and watermen found refresh- 
 ment and picked up news of the town. 
 
 284
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Neither the grey old church, nor the Palace of 
 Lambeth, rich in romantic lore, engaged the 
 attention of the lonely woman shivering close by 
 the ferry. She had no eyes for the villas of the 
 rich or the mansions of the proud. Her heart 
 was torn with anxiety, on the one hand for the 
 little creature nestling for warmth to her bosom, 
 and on the other for her husband, between whom 
 and herself the river rolled, broad, and black, and 
 menacing, racing silently away to the sea, and in 
 some mysterious way beckoning her onwards 
 into the darkness. 
 
 Across the glistening flood she could distin- 
 guish lights on the northern shore. There was 
 one light above all. It was in Whitehall ; and 
 where that light was, there was the King. She 
 watched it as the men out of the East watched 
 of old the star they feared to lose, did they for a 
 moment avert their gaze. As she tried to pierce 
 the deep pall of gloom through which the river 
 coursed, the light that fascinated her was blurred 
 into a thousand beams, the reflection of her tears, 
 tears for the lonely master of the Palace ; for the 
 poor woman in scanty attire and threadbare 
 cloak, sheltering under the church, crouching 
 from the wind, cowering at every footfall, was 
 the Queen of England, and the infant in her 
 arms was the Prince of Wales ! 
 
 Mary Beatrice had just been ferried across the 
 285
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 river from Whitehall, and, clad like an Italian 
 washerwoman, here she was shivering in the 
 blast, awaiting the coach that was to convey her 
 to Gravesend. 
 
 A little apart from the Queen was a group of 
 ladies and a cavalier, the chivalrous Count de 
 Lauzun, famous as the husband of Madame 
 de Montpensier, who, with St. Victor, a gentle- 
 man of Avignon, had crossed the Channel to do 
 battle, like true knights errant, for this distressed 
 lady. St. Victor, who was garbed as a seaman, 
 had run to the inn to bring up the coach which 
 ought to have met them by the ferry. This 
 gentleman of France was of the very mettle for 
 so gallant an enterprise, for, besides the dash and 
 courage of a soldier, he had the quick wit, the 
 ready hand, the lithe foot of a D'Artagnan, born 
 to confound single-handed whole armies. A pry- 
 ing ostler at the inn followed the coach and six 
 horses as it swung out of the yard, bent upon 
 discovering what passengers of consequence had 
 landed from the ferry at that late hour. Though 
 he carried a lantern, it did not save him from 
 falling over St. Victor, who ran full tilt into his 
 arms with all the awkwardness of these damned 
 foreigners ! Ostler and Frenchman and lantern 
 rolled in the mud over and over; and when 
 they had done rolling the lantern was extin- 
 guished. 
 
 286
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 " Ten thousand pardons," cried St. Victor, in 
 broken English. 
 
 " A plague on you for a blind " began the 
 
 ostler, but St. Victor, covered with mud and wet 
 to the skin after his adventure, hurried to the 
 carriage, leaving him to finish at leisure his 
 tirade of profanity. The Queen was already in 
 her place. Lauzun, too, had mounted the coach, 
 and St. Victor, flinging himself on a horse, 
 brought up the rear of the cavalcade. 
 
 Galloping along the rugged road to Gravesend 
 few words were spoken. The Frenchmen's right 
 hands were seldom far away from their pistols. 
 To them it was a ride through a land of bar- 
 barians. They could not be expected to realise 
 that of the lusty fellows snoring on the river 
 barges nine out of every ten would have died for 
 Queen or Prince, though ready to slit a foreigner's 
 throat. And of the travellers whom they passed 
 on the road there was not one perhaps capable 
 of even a harsh thought against the unhappy 
 mother and babe, now leading the flight of the 
 Stuarts which was to cut them off for ever from 
 their inheritance. 
 
 The poor Queen was distraught. If the yacht 
 should fail them at Gravesend the Prince might 
 be taken from her arms, and her own fate be 
 that of Mary of Scotland. If the yacht were 
 there in obedience to the King's command, soon 
 
 287
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 she would be far away from the husband she so 
 passionately adored. 
 
 Her Majesty was roused at length from the 
 reverie of despair by the warning of her com- 
 panions that they had concluded the first stage 
 in their flight. They took the Prince from her 
 and transformed him, as well as they could, into 
 a bundle of linen. Fervently the ladies prayed 
 that no cry from the bundle would reveal its 
 secret. Then some finishing touches were given 
 to the Queen's toilet to complete her part as 
 that of the Italian washerwoman. In a moment 
 the coach was at the waterside. The shipping 
 reared its masts and rigging into the lowering 
 sky. It was a cold, and desolate, and spectral 
 panorama. The washerwoman shivered like one 
 smitten with ague, and, clasping tightly her 
 bundle, she humbly entered the small boat, in 
 which the other ladies of the party had already 
 taken their places. Lauzun and St. Victor 
 stepped in. The rowers pushed off, and in a few 
 minutes the yacht had been boarded, the sails 
 spread, and, wafted by a favourable breeze, they 
 were speeding to the open sea. Heaven was 
 kind to send that wind, and fervent were the 
 grateful prayers of the Queen. But the voyagers 
 were not done with alarms. The favourable' 
 wind freshened until it became a gale, and, not 
 venturing to proceed farther than the Downs, 
 
 288
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the yacht cast anchor there to ride out the 
 storm. 
 
 Throughout the night the gentle passengers 
 lay huddled in the miserable hold, for this rough 
 craft had no accommodation for dainty ladies. 
 Lauzun and St. Victor stood by the captain, 
 ready to punish treachery, if treachery there 
 should be, or to be ready for instant service 
 should the tempest threaten them with destruc- 
 tion. Quivering beneath the buffeting of the 
 mountainous seas, groaning as the gale tore 
 furiously through the rigging, the tiny bark held 
 staunchly by her straining cables to her anchor- 
 age. In the chequered story of Great Britain, 
 never before had sea and storm prizes so great 
 so completely at their mercy, for it was not in 
 rough Gravesend schooners, but in the finest 
 ships the world of their day could build, that 
 Queens of England and Princes of Wales were 
 ever wont to tempt the perils of the deep. 
 
 It was in Monday's small hours that the 
 Queen left Whitehall. Not until Tuesday 
 morning did they descry Calais. At that welcome 
 sight away with caution. The washerwoman was 
 a washerwoman no longer. Now the bundle of 
 linen might cry until they heard him in Dover. 
 Mary Beatrice was once more a queen. Lauzun 
 and St. Victor had secured their lady, like true 
 chevaliers of France. 
 
 VOL. i 289 u
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 And now, with the Queen and the Prince in a 
 place of safety, let the scene be changed once 
 more to Whitehall. 
 
 It was long past midnight, and James slept the 
 deep sleep of exhaustion. In the ante-chamber, 
 watch was kept by the Earl of Middleton. 
 A loud knocking suddenly aroused the lord-in- 
 waiting, and, the door having been opened, in 
 stepped Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delamere. 
 
 " King of Hearts " and Delamere were open 
 enemies of the monarch. Halifax was a dis- 
 appointing friend. What did they want at such 
 an hour ? 
 
 To see the King ! 
 
 But the King slept. 
 
 Asleep or awake, they would see his Majesty. 
 They came from the Prince of Orange with 
 a letter, and they must deliver it instantly. 
 " Instantly ! " It was a sinister word. If 
 Middleton were wise he foresaw at that moment 
 what this visit meant. The King was no longer 
 master here. Authority had departed from the 
 sceptre, and the man who wore the Crown was in 
 reality a subject. 
 
 Middleton turned to the bedside of his unhappy 
 Prince. Well may he have hesitated to awake 
 him from oblivion to the pangs of reality. Per- 
 chance, indeed, his sufferings had pursued him in 
 his dreams, and that even the pillow offered no 
 
 290
 
 
 From a photo by Emery Walker, after the picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX, K.G. 
 
 p. 290.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 refuge from the round of martyrdom. Falling 
 on his knees by the King, the noble addressed 
 him. But the weary spirit would not willingly 
 resume its dominion. When at last the King 
 awoke, he at once gave orders for the admission 
 of the messengers. 
 
 Never had envoys a more ungracious errand. 
 Gladly would they have yielded to others the 
 honour of this audience. But the Prince of 
 Orange was never the man to spare the feelings 
 of English traitors. Halifax it was who pro- 
 posed that James should be invited to leave 
 Whitehall, and Halifax it was who was obliged 
 to give effect to his own counsel. This was then 
 his embassy, to order the master from his house. 
 
 On seeing Shrewsbury and his companions in 
 his bedchamber at two o'clock in the morning, the 
 King could hardly doubt but that soldiers were 
 in the corridor, and that he had lived his last hour 
 of liberty. It was with relief perhaps that he 
 heard the sentence of banishment from his capital. 
 
 To Ham House he was ordered, but James 
 pleaded that, since go he should, Rochester might 
 be his destination. They yielded the point. 
 What did it matter so that he took himself 
 away from the eyes of his people ? But through 
 the City he should not go. The spectacle of a 
 British king being marched out of London by 
 Dutch troops would ruin everything. It would 
 
 291
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 turn to fire the phlegm of plain Englishmen. 
 The streets would run with blood. The indignity 
 should be inflicted with all possible secrecy. A 
 prisoner in the midst of Dutch soldiery, they 
 hurried him away to the river on the morning 
 of December 18, and not an English soldier 
 mounted guard at the Palace to salute the King 
 as he took leave for ever of his ancestral home. 
 
 It was through a blinding rain-storm that the 
 King for the last time, from the barge where he 
 was a prisoner, looked upon Whitehall, upon the 
 Palace of Westminster, upon the mansions which 
 from either bank commanded the Thames. Cold 
 was his heart as he gazed upon this picture, which 
 no setting could rob of the poetry of a thousand 
 inspiriting memories. Through the quivering 
 cords of rain which lashed around the barge he 
 saw the shore lined with people who, braving the 
 elements, had come to pay him homage for the 
 last time. There were tears in their eyes, but 
 these jewels of affection James could not see. 
 And then at last the tide served. The barge 
 moved on. The Westminster shore was left 
 behind, and Whitehall itself was soon blotted 
 out by the windings of the river. Down poured 
 the rain ; dismal was the town ; lowering was 
 the sky. All was lost ; and Nature, for that day 
 an artist, made this mourning well, for the King 
 would return no more. 
 
 292
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 While the captive King made his long journey 
 down the river to Gravesend, Prince William 
 rode into London to St. James's. By means, 
 fair or foul, he would win this kingdom, but 
 not for a little time would he dare to govern it 
 from Whitehall. There were ghosts which his 
 sword could not exorcise, ghosts which the bottle 
 itself could not lay. This passing cowardice 
 was a brave soldier's tribute to the sentiments 
 he had trampled down on the road to victory. 
 
 A little later came Anne to the Cockpit. If 
 ghosts were stirring there she would brave them, 
 for so William ordained it. With a high hand 
 would Anne carry her sin. Bedecked in orange 
 and green, the Prince's colours, they say she went 
 to the theatre, while her poor old father was on 
 his way to Rochester. With her of course was 
 Lady Churchill, to help her mistress brazen out 
 her evil-doing. Throughout that evening the 
 Princess and her companions, rather than the play, 
 were doubtless the attraction for the audience. 
 
 And well might she be. The play could not 
 surpass in tragedy, nor in comedy either, the 
 great historical drama in which the Royal lady 
 was a leading actress. The men and women on 
 the stage were like the strolling mimes in 
 " Hamlet." For here was a play within the play, 
 and the stage was where you pleased, and, where 
 you pleased, the audience. 
 
 293
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Outside the wind blew, freshening almost to a 
 tempest. Anne heard it blow. Lear was at its 
 mercy. His boat was on the waters. But the 
 daughter, be-ribboned and be-jewelled, beaming 
 on her friends, applauding the players, would not 
 listen to its rage. 
 
 Till the end she remained, then drove to the 
 Cockpit to the ghosts. But what did the 
 crowd know of ghosts as they pressed round her 
 carriage ? The great nobles had ruffians to pro- 
 pitiate or to reward. They had party victories 
 to compass and party passions to inflame. And 
 this enthusiastic mob " hurrahing " for a faithless 
 daughter had been paid its price. 
 
 To her pillow some echo would follow the 
 Princess of the cheering crowds, and in her 
 ears would ring once more their insults to the 
 King and Queen, raucous jests of licensed 
 ribaldry. The wind howled round her case- 
 ment, and on its wings came voices whispering 
 to her, whispering God alone knows what. . . . 
 
 When at last sleep touched her eyelids, 
 strange, indeed, was it if it gave repose to her 
 throbbing brow. Who can sleep with ghosts ? 
 With a cry one can see her start from her 
 feverish slumber and strain her eyes to penetrate 
 the gloom. No 1 Her brother was not there. 
 That cry which came to her in her dreams was 
 but a dream. Thank God ! The King, the 
 
 294
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Queen, the babe, were not there in the shadows 
 spying upon her from behind curtains and 
 draperies. Sleep once more, Princess. Now 
 your distracted spirit flies through the night to 
 the sea. It hovers above the fields of dark- 
 green oily waves tumbling wildly away before 
 the raging tempest. Poor lost soul ! A minute 
 here in the black whirlwind is an eternity of 
 damnation. Something on the crest of a huge 
 wave takes shape. It is a boat a boat, good 
 God ! out there on such a night ! The wave 
 fled onwards, bearing the frail craft to the deep 
 trough of broken seas. Like a shadow it sped 
 past the poor trembling spirit, and plunged into 
 the watery precipice. A woman's white face set 
 with two great shining eyes was all that sailed 
 on that spectral ship. And then, as is the way 
 with dreams, the woman's face was a babe's, 
 and oh ! so near to the embrace of the wolfish 
 sea ! . . . 
 
 But one may not sleep with ghosts. The 
 Princess awakes, on her brow the beads of 
 terror. She rubs her eyes. It is still dark. 
 Sleeping there are nightmares ; waking there is 
 remorse. She herself has made it so ; and so it 
 now must ever be. Burying her face in her 
 pillow, vainly she prays that life were one long 
 day, with the world all a-laughing, with no night, 
 no loneliness, no silence, for thought and for tears. 
 
 295
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A FATHER'S curse inaugurated the Corona- 
 *-^- tion of the Princess of Orange. Just as 
 she was attired by her ladies for the ceremony at 
 Westminster Abbey, a messenger brought the news 
 that King James had landed in Ireland, and that 
 the Irish had acclaimed him as their true Prince. 
 Cold ran the blood to Mary's heart, her cheek 
 blanched at hearing that her deeply wronged 
 sire was so near. She had been long enough in 
 London to understand that she owed her Crown 
 rather to her father's ill-luck than to her own or 
 her husband's merit. James's errors were readily 
 forgotten when it ceased to be the business of the 
 Press to paint him in the blackest colours. And 
 now, on her Coronation day, he had comeback, and 
 one quarter of the realm had welcomed him 
 home. Nor had James's flight, his misfortunes, 
 the courage and patience of Mary Beatrice, left 
 untouched the hearts of the English ; for was 
 not the King, with all his faults, blood of their 
 blood, whilst the stranger on his throne was as 
 little flawless as the Briton he had driven out ! 
 
 296
 
 From a photo by Emery Walker, after tlie plettire by William Wisslns i 
 National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 QUEEN MARY II. 
 
 p. 200.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Happily the Irish Sea still rolled between her 
 father and the English shore, and Mary, 
 trembling in the midst of her waiting-women, 
 thanked God for it ; and might a " Protestant 
 wind " ever sweep its restless waters ! 
 
 But this April day was to be made darker 
 still. The King was with her when the Earl of 
 Nottingham, her Lord Chamberlain, handed her 
 a letter from her father. He wrote that 
 
 " hitherto he had made all fatherly excuses for 
 what had been done, and had wholly attri- 
 buted her part in the Revolution to obedience 
 to her husband. But the act of being crowned 
 was in her own power ; and if she were crowned 
 while he and the Prince of Wales were living, 
 the curses of an outraged father would light upon 
 her, as well as of that God who has commanded 
 duty to parents." 
 
 Nottingham, whose conscience forbade him to 
 assist in effecting the Revolution while it ac- 
 quiesced in his accepting favours from the new 
 Court, was now the witness of a singular scene 
 of recrimination. William, whom one can 
 scarcely imagine susceptible to any curse save 
 that of seeing his troops flying before an enemy, 
 declared he had done nothing but with the 
 approbation of his wife : not only with her 
 approval, but by her advice. 
 
 One can believe that Mary, in her desperate 
 297
 
 craving for some sign of affection from her 
 husband, may have outpaced him in her zeal 
 against her father. His taunt, flung at her 
 before the household, stung her indeed, as only 
 truth can sting, and her retort was tinged with 
 something of that reckless and callous spirit in 
 which Anne had approved at Leicester, the idea of 
 a Society for the extirpation of all Catholics should 
 ill befah 1 the Prince of Orange. She told William 
 that he might blame himself if her father should 
 regain his authority for "letting him go as he did." 
 What that mysterious reproach hinted at Mary 
 alone perhaps knew ; but in its dark suggestive- 
 ness can be traced something of the cruelty 
 which only kindred can inflict on kindred when 
 love turns to such bitterness as makes common 
 hatred mild by comparison. 
 
 With her father's malediction ringing in her 
 brain, Mary went out from Whitehall with her 
 partner to be crowned at Westminster Abbey. 
 The occasion was too solemn for the airy bravado 
 with which she had, on returning to England, 
 entered into possession of a father's home. Then 
 she was joyously defiant by command of the 
 husband, who would not have a daughter tearful 
 for so slight a cause as a father's ruin. And did 
 she need encouragement to rise to her part it was 
 the duty of her Court to fire her with the neces- 
 sary spirit. She and they were comrades, if not 
 
 298
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 in sin, at least in prosperity. But her corona- 
 tion called her to a stage where she was, above 
 all, an object of curiosity ; where every woman 
 wondered of what flesh was this daughter made, 
 and every man knew she had sold her father in a 
 frantic effort to dethrone Elizabeth Villiers from 
 her sinister queenship, and had sold him in vain. 
 William eyed nobles and dames as one who was 
 their feudal lord : his sword his best title to their 
 allegiance. He saw himself the Conqueror, just 
 like the great Norman of centuries earlier. It 
 was an illusion which experience would dispel. 
 But Mary, hot with shame, had no illusions. 
 There had assuredly been a conquest, a downfall ; 
 but in her inmost heart she must have felt that 
 there was in England no such slave as she who 
 henceforth was Queen in name. 
 
 Hardly had William taken up the reins of 
 government than the spoiled child of James II. 
 was rudely awakened to her folly. Anne had 
 risen against an indulgent father to impose upon 
 herself the iron discipline of a fortress. Of that 
 fortress William was commandant, and none 
 might challenge his rule. The people were in- 
 dependent ; of Parliament he was a little afraid, 
 because it held the golden key to his ambitions. 
 But in the Royal circle he would unglove the 
 iron hand. The Queen was inured to it ; but 
 Anne, with spirit unbroken by the trials through 
 
 299
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 which her sister had passed at The Hague, was 
 speedily in revolt. 
 
 William could not brook spirit in a woman 
 unless she happened to be Elizabeth Villiers, and 
 to Anne he would show no leniency. The sisters 
 were not even comforted by mutual affection in 
 their serfdom. The bonds uniting them in girl- 
 hood had been snapped beyond repair during the 
 years in which one had been learning the lesson 
 of patient suffering, and the other habits of un- 
 restrained luxury and extravagance at the expense 
 of an adoring parent. The first delight of their 
 reunion was quickly dissipated by petty conten- 
 tions. Anne asked for the splendid apartments 
 at Whitehall which had been the home of Louise 
 de Querouaille in the days of her ascendency. 
 The King immediately granted her request. 
 Then Anne desired some rooms that lay adjacent 
 to these for the use of her servants. The Duke 
 of Devonshire, however, put forward what he 
 conceived to be his superior claim, and the 
 Queen threw her influence on the side of the 
 Lord Steward. It may be that Devonshire 
 thought that Anne would decline the Duchess's 
 apartments when she could not have the others. 
 If so he was disappointed, and a reversion which, 
 to quote Sarah Churchill, would have given his 
 Grace a very " magnificent air " as master of 
 the finest ball-room in London, was denied him. 
 
 300
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Anne's next request was for the Palace of Rich- 
 mond, endeared to her by early associations. 
 But this desire brought her into conflict with 
 one greater than Devonshire. Richmond was in 
 the possession of the Villiers family, and Eliza- 
 beth's kindred were not to be lightly evicted, for 
 was she not the real Queen ? 
 
 Many circumstances united to make Anne 
 repellent to her brother-in-law. He soon learned 
 that she enjoyed the affections of the people to 
 an extent he could never hope to rival. Her 
 faults were made light of, being attributed to 
 selfish advisers, to her sex, and to inexperience 
 rather than to innate perversity. Many would 
 gladly have seen her Queen, since a change of 
 Sovereigns was inevitable. The future, too, was 
 full of uncertainty, and to the astute Dutchman 
 nothing in it was more uncertain than Anne. In 
 a thousand ways she might be made the tool 
 of those who would thwart him. It was con- 
 ceivable even that some day she might serve as 
 the instrument of a humiliation in the exact ratio 
 to the splendour of his uprise, for the same power 
 which had placed him on the throne could in the 
 future supplant him in favour of the Princess. 
 Besides this jealousy, based on Anne's natural 
 advantages as an English Princess in her own 
 land, where he was a stranger dependent for his 
 rank on the difficulties of the nation rather than 
 
 301
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 on sentimental ties, there existed another potent 
 cause of strife. Abhorrent to William were 
 Anne's closest friends, Sarah and her husband, 
 now Countess and Earl of Marlborough, in 
 virtue of their share in the Revolution. 
 
 To reduce Anne to complete subservience was 
 therefore, for political and personal reasons, a 
 cardinal feature of William's policy. Under her 
 father's rule Anne had drawn a Royal income. 
 But the Revolution, as she regretfully discovered, 
 meant more than a change of monarchs. There 
 were new arrangements at the Treasury, and the 
 prodigal mistress of the Cockpit saw the golden 
 stream grow suddenly dry. To William it 
 appeared the wildest extravagance that Anne 
 should be given some 32,000 a year to spend 
 on her caprices, while he had uses so much more 
 worthy for all the wealth that England could 
 spare. The Princess, therefore, was deprived of 
 her revenue, and became a pensioner on the 
 bounty of her brother-in-law. He would dole 
 out to her what she needed, and he would see 
 that she did not need too much. 
 
 To Anne, who had never known restraint in 
 expenditure, this arrangement was the very 
 refinement of persecution. In the past she had 
 given herself no anxiety as to what became of all 
 her thousands. If they melted long before the 
 allotted time she contracted debt, and her father 
 
 302
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 came to her relief. What a change was this, to 
 find every golden piece a rare curio which, having 
 once escaped her, might return only through the 
 tight fist of King William ! It was too early yet 
 for her to feel remorse. That was a punishment 
 reserved for later years. Rage and disappointment 
 and vain regrets for her former affluence and in- 
 dependence were the chastisement of the present. 
 An incident which occurred at Hampton Court 
 during the summer following the Coronation 
 throws into cameo-like relief the character and 
 attitude of William at this time. Anne, who 
 was shortly to become a mother, was his guest, 
 and in the course of a meal a dish of green peas, 
 beautifully fresh and inviting, from the Royal 
 gardens were laid upon the table. They were the 
 first of the season, and Anne, already something 
 of a gourmand, revelled in anticipation of the 
 treat to come. William helped himself liberally 
 from the dish. Anne waited patiently. William 
 was strangely forgetful. He had devoured her 
 income, he might at least give her a spoonful of 
 peas. He renewed his attentions to the dish 
 without ever casting in her direction an inquiring 
 eye. The plague take him for a king if this was 
 the art of Royal hospitality as acquired at The 
 Hague ! The great man, unconscious of the 
 young matron's envy, finished the peas, and 
 the outrage was accomplished. 
 
 303
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 On July 24, 1689, while still the Princess re- 
 sided at Hampton Court, a child was born to 
 her, the only one of all her progeny who sur- 
 vived infancy and grew up to boyhood. Anne's 
 pride and joy in the birth of her son were shared 
 by the people generally, who rejoiced in this 
 pledge that England would once again have 
 an English King. The patrons of the Revolu- 
 tion regarded the boy as heir to the Crown, 
 while many whose sympathies were with James 
 looked kindly on an infant sprung from the old 
 dynasty, who might eventually, for the sake 
 of peace, be preferred to the rightful Prince of 
 Wales. 
 
 Encouraged by her new dignity, and strong 
 in the favour she had conferred upon her country 
 by giving them this Prince, Anne took measures 
 to free herself from the thraldom imposed on her 
 by William. She was resolved to enjoy once 
 more a well-filled purse which would be all her 
 own. Steps were taken in Parliament to set 
 aside a separate income for the Princess. The 
 Queen having reproached Anne with the pro- 
 ceedings in the Commons, the latter attributed 
 them to the solicitude of her friends. "And 
 pray," said the Queen, "what friends have you 
 but the King and me ? " It was Her Majesty's 
 first thrust at the Marlboroughs, who were active 
 in promoting a scheme which was probably as 
 
 304
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 necessary to Sarah's comfort as it was to Anne's 
 dignity and peace of mind. 
 
 A sum of fifty thousand a year was set aside 
 by Parliament for Anne, and she resumed her 
 former mode of life as mistress of a splendid 
 establishment. Nor did the Marlboroughs go 
 empty-handed. The victory brought a pension 
 of a thousand a year to Sarah from her Royal 
 mistress, with apologies for troubling her with so 
 insignificant a trifle. 
 
 From the Earl of Nottingham the King pur- 
 chased Kensington House, and while workmen 
 were engaged in transforming it into a Royal 
 residence Anne leased Campden House, in the 
 vicinity, as the home of her baby boy, young 
 William Duke of Gloucester, now approaching 
 the first anniversary of his birthday. When the 
 day arrived the little duke had grown enormously 
 in importance, for only a couple of weeks before, 
 the disaster of the Boyne and James's second 
 Flight to France had administered a crushing 
 blow to the hopes of the Legitimists. 
 
 But though the fortune of war favoured the 
 sisters, victory did not bring contentment. Mary 
 had immolated on the altar of her lord's glory her 
 every sense of justice. True happiness for her 
 there could not be while her father's malediction 
 rested on her head. But love can compensate 
 a love-sick woman for much, and may even nerve 
 
 VOL. i 305 x
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 her to bear so terrible a burden. For Mary, 
 however, there was no such compensation. She 
 had bartered right to no purpose, and having 
 betrayed her father she found herself as far 
 removed as ever from a place in the heart of the 
 strange being whom she had the misfortune to 
 call husband. Yet is there something singularly 
 touching in the way she endured her isolation, 
 humbly subjecting herself to the tyrant's whims, 
 in the hope of winning some day a tender return. 
 Just as for his sake she hardened her heart against 
 her father, so she never dreamt of shielding her 
 sister as she might have done from his insults. 
 
 When in the summer of 1691 William was 
 quitting England for Flanders, Prince George 
 volunteered to serve at sea. The Prince had 
 long ago proved his bravery, and though without 
 ability for command, Anne doubtless wished that 
 some employment might be given him which 
 would bring him credit, if not renown, in the 
 eyes of his fellow-countrymen as father of their 
 future King. William overwhelmed the unfor- 
 tunate volunteer with contempt. To his applica- 
 tion he vouchsafed no reply, and at the eleventh 
 hour, when all George's preparations were com- 
 plete, and he was about to join the fleet, Lord 
 Nottingham waited upon him with the Queen's 
 commands to the contrary. This humiliation, 
 which made Anne and the Prince the laughing- 
 
 306
 
 From a photo liv Kinerv Walker, after the painting; 1>y Micliael Dahl in the 
 ' National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 THE PRINCESS AXXE WITH HEK INFANT SON, WILLIAM, 
 DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. 
 
 1>. 300.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 stock of the town, was softened by no diplomatic 
 subterfuge, by no sisterly grace, and henceforth 
 Mary and Anne were divided by that bitter 
 enmity which can rankle only in bosoms once 
 united by the gentlest bonds. 
 
 Soon rumours were current which cast Anne's 
 household under something of a political cloud. 
 It was said that Marlborough had entered into 
 correspondence with St. Germains, that the 
 ingrate to his old friend and master was a traitor 
 to his new allegiance. The Revolution had 
 brought Marlborough an Earldom ; he was, 
 moreover, a lord of the bed-chamber and a 
 member of William's Council. But the wrangles 
 of ministers, and the society of a Court from 
 which the master was nearly always absent, had 
 no attractions for one of the greatest warriors of 
 history. 
 
 He had seen some service in Ireland during 
 the late campaign, but his successes there had 
 only kindled his enthusiasm for the broader field 
 beyond the North Sea, where the armies of 
 France and the Empire wrestled for victory. 
 The Garter, which would have consoled him for 
 this inaction, had been solicited for him by Anne, 
 and refused by the Queen. Piqued by this treat- 
 ment, but impelled above all by the restless spirit 
 which, untrammelled by any code of chivalry, 
 would pursue the path of immediate advantage, 
 
 307
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Marlborough turned his attention to St. Ger- 
 mains. What matter who was King, what 
 matter who suffered, if with one more national 
 paroxysm the Earl became a marquis, or the 
 coveted Garter adorned his breast ! 
 
 It often needs greater courage to be a rogue 
 than an honest man. Marlborough, in entering 
 into relations with St. Germains at this juncture, 
 was courting destruction. William was kept 
 well posted in the affairs of the exiled Royal 
 Family. Of this Marlborough could hardly have 
 been ignorant, nor could he have expected that 
 William and Mary would conspire to cover up 
 his backslidings, did any hint of them reach their 
 ears. 
 
 But one ready to dare all was at hand to banish 
 the whisperings of prudence, if such there were. 
 Sarah knew that the Tower was full of political 
 prisoners ; she knew that blood had been shed 
 profusely to protect the Throne. The Queen's 
 uncle, the Earl of Clarendon, was in captivity 
 for loving her father well. Lord Preston, James's 
 Lord Chamberlain, had escaped execution only 
 because he was more useful to the Crown alive 
 than dead, by reason of the information he could 
 give concerning the Jacobite schemes. Marl- 
 borough, however, in his placid fashion, counted 
 the risks, then rushed into treason. 
 
 He wrote to King James that he was harassed 
 308
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 with remorse at the remembrance of his crimes 
 against His Majesty, and, what was of greater 
 moment, promised " to bring the Princess Anne 
 back to her duty if he received the least word of 
 encouragement. " 
 
 If at this time James had suddenly appeared 
 in London, resentment against his successor, if 
 not affection for himself, would have gone far to 
 secure his restoration. Avarice, corruption, and 
 extravagance were playing havoc with the re- 
 sources of the country ; English soldiers were 
 being slaughtered in Flanders in campaigns 
 barren of glory, and the English navy, recently 
 so formidable, had been swept from the Channel 
 by the French. 
 
 William would not condescend to flatter his 
 new subjects by learning the art of being an 
 Englishman, and the great English nobles could 
 not acquire at will the Dutch manner which 
 would stamp them as worthy of the King, who 
 despised them. But James would not risk being 
 sold twice, least of all by Jack Churchill. The 
 overtures from William's lord of the bed- 
 chamber were therefore awarded but cold 
 recognition at St. Germains, where hard fortune 
 had taught them to value lightly professions of 
 friendship that stopped at fair words. 
 
 At the Cockpit a hundred dark schemes were 
 discussed and rejected. Under the influence of 
 
 309
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 the Marlboroughs it had become a hot-bed of 
 treason. The master was of a temper to take 
 his wrongs with philosophy. While his lady had 
 fifty thousand pounds of English gold to maintain 
 herself and him, and repair the ravages wrought 
 by time upon the wine-cellar, Prince George 
 could bridle his wrath. Anne, too, had her aid 
 to philosophy, for there was Gloucester. What- 
 ever vexation the Revolution had brought her, 
 it held out to Gloucester the certainty of a 
 Crown. And this, regarded from the standpoint 
 of purely material advantage, might be held to 
 outweigh the discomforts of such annoyance as 
 it was within the power of William to inflict. 
 But at this juncture Anne is found opposing, as 
 it were, Gloucester's progress to the Throne. 
 Where Marlborough had led the way she fol- 
 lowed, and at the close of 1691, just three years 
 from the date of her sin, we find her begging her 
 father's forgiveness in this letter : 
 
 " I have been very desirous of some safe oppor- 
 tunity to make you a sincere and humble offer of 
 my duty and submission, and to beg you will be 
 assured that I am both truly concerned for the 
 misfortune of your condition, and sensible, as I 
 ought to be, of my own unhappiness. As to 
 what you may think I have contributed to it, if 
 wishes could recall what is past, I have long 
 since redeemed my fault. I am sensible it would 
 have been a great relief to me if I could have 
 
 310
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 found means to have acquainted you earlier with 
 my repentant thoughts, but I hope they may find 
 the advantage of coming late of being less 
 suspected of insincerity than perhaps they would 
 have been at any time before. It will be a great 
 addition to the ease I propose to my own mind 
 by this plain confession if I am so happy as to 
 find that it brings any real satisfaction to yours, 
 and that you are as indulgent and easy to 
 receive my humble submissions as I am to make 
 them, in a free, disinterested acknowledgment of 
 my fault, for no other end but to deserve and 
 receive your pardon. I have had a great mind 
 to beg you to make one compliment for me, but 
 fearing the expressions which would be properest 
 for me to make use of might be, perhaps, the 
 least convenient for a letter, I must content 
 myself at present with hoping the bearer will 
 make a compliment for me to the Queen." 
 
 The Court was not long in ignorance of the 
 doings at the Cockpit. Lady Fitzharding was 
 neither blind nor deaf, now that her sister was so 
 near, any more than when she had ruled at The 
 Hague. The King and Queen were dismayed 
 at this real peril. Nowhere could William look 
 for disinterested loyalty. Everything depended 
 on the Queen, and her ability proved somehow 
 equal to the emergency, though her tact fell far 
 short of what wisdom would demand. 
 
 It was Anne's way to evade an unpleasant 
 issue. The more masculine Mary met it bravely. 
 There was a stormy interview between the sisters, 
 
 311
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 one bent upon destroying the Marlboroughs, the 
 other their sworn friend. Little that was said 
 has been handed down, but sufficient to indicate 
 that Mary played the part of Queen, and would 
 command, while Anne was dogged, and would 
 disobey. Each knew well the measure of the 
 other's strength. Mary might threaten, but 
 nobody knew better than the Queen that they 
 dare not hurt a hair of the Princess's head. To do 
 so would be to invite ruin. Without Anne's 
 assistance William could never have been King, 
 without her countenance his Throne would suffer 
 in stability and dignity. To attempt to punish 
 her would be to reveal her strength and his own 
 weakness. So galling a position exasperated the 
 Royal pair, and they struck at Anne in the only 
 way they dared through her favourites, the 
 detested Marlboroughs. 
 
 As a lord of the bed-chamber it was Marl- 
 borough's privilege to assist His Majesty to don 
 his shirt. This honourable service having been 
 duly performed one winter's morning, the King 
 sent him a message dispensing with his services. 
 Marlborough had gone a-hunting for adventures, 
 and had found them ! Anne's friendship could 
 not shield him ; and if the Earl had counted upon 
 it he had done so most unwisely, for the higher 
 he stood with Anne, the deeper would be his dis- 
 grace, so far as William and Mary could compass it. 
 
 312
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 " IV yf Y brave English ! My brave English 1 " 
 J*yj- Delight blended with despair, despair 
 with delight in this cry, for it was uttered by 
 James II. as he watched the battle in which he 
 saw his countrymen triumph, while his own most 
 fondly cherished hopes were dispelled by their 
 bravery. 
 
 The day was that of May 19, 1692. Before 
 James lay the swelling bosom of the Channel, on 
 which rode many a gallant ship of the line, with 
 here the flag of France floating to the breeze, 
 and there the standard of his beloved England. 
 And beneath these flags were done the deeds of 
 reckless valour that stirred the blood of the 
 monarch watching from the shore. Did France 
 win, then the sea was clear for a Franco-Irish 
 army to embark for the English coast ; and it 
 would go hard with them if, having once more 
 set foot on his native land, he did not regain the 
 Crown of his fathers. Did victory rest with 
 the banners of England, then were all his plans 
 frustrated, all his castles but castles in the air. 
 
 313
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 But in that thrilling hour, when his old comrades 
 of the English fleet, with irresistible bravery, 
 closed with the French, ready to die, every man, 
 or lord it over the Channel, James was above all 
 a Briton. The waters ran red with the blood 
 of his foreign friends ; their noble ships were 
 shattered hulks, riddled with English balls ; from 
 the smoke of battle masts and spars emerged, 
 columns of fire. The French were beaten. 
 James was beaten. But the honour of British 
 seamen was retrieved, and James, a British sea- 
 man too, cried out in an ecstasy of pure patriotism, 
 " My brave English ! My brave English ! " 
 
 Could the English have but heard that cry, no 
 foreign ships would have been needed to carry 
 him to London, where all through the spring 
 the Princess Anne, now at deadly feud with the 
 Court, awaited with trembling anxiety the issue 
 of the French preparations for a descent upon 
 England. 
 
 Anne was lying seriously ill at Sion House, 
 the ducal mansion on the banks of the Thames 
 familiar to Stuarts in tribulation, when news 
 reached her that misfortune had once again been 
 her father's portion. If in her anger against her 
 sister she had really desired the restoration of 
 her father, the tidings from La Hogue must have 
 sufficed to convince her of her folly. Not every 
 day could Louis risk such a battle, and for weal 
 
 314
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 or woe the Throne of William and Mary was by 
 this victory rendered secure from foreign assaults. 
 And as for domestic conspiracies, they were 
 likely to be more dangerous to the conspirators 
 than to the Sovereigns. For it was ever the 
 spirit of the English to look askance upon patriots 
 working in the dark. 
 
 Anne's migration from the Cockpit to Sion 
 House let the whole town into the secret of the 
 warfare raging at Court. The dismissal of Marl- 
 borough by the King was intended as a hint that 
 he and his wife would best consult His Majesty's 
 pleasure by disappearing altogether from the 
 Royal circle. Sarah, however, was not the 
 person to obliterate herself voluntarily. Im- 
 mediately following her husband's disgrace she 
 had the temerity to attend the public reception 
 at Kensington Palace in the train of the Princess 
 Anne, who perpetrated the impertinence with an 
 air of the most exasperating innocence, which 
 was a feast of comedy for the wags of the Court. 
 It was as though the loyalty of the Cockpit were 
 above suspicion. Above suspicion indeed ! Look 
 at the Countess of Marlborough come to do 
 homage, though the Earl had only just been 
 driven from the Palace 1 Surely there never 
 before was such humble devotion ! 
 
 But Queen Mary, knowing Sarah and her 
 sister, construed that humble devotion into in- 
 
 315
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 supportable insolence. With what equanimity 
 she could, she endured the presence of the 
 Countess in the presence-chamber, but the while 
 she inwardly resolved that never again should 
 Sarah so deride her authority. If Anne and 
 Sarah laughed that night on their return from 
 Kensington at the ease with which they had 
 flouted their Majesties, by the next day the jest 
 had lost its piquancy. From Kensington Palace 
 came a letter commanding the favourite's dis- 
 missal, and the Princess discovered that her 
 splendid joke, at which the town would laugh, 
 relishing its coolness, its audacity, its aiiy, 
 mischievous spirit, was one of the costliest 
 escapades of her life. In this letter declaring 
 open war the Queen wrote : 
 
 " KENSINGTON, February 5, 1692. 
 
 " Having something to say to you which I know 
 will not be very pleasing, I choose rather to write 
 it first, being unwilling to surprise you ; though 
 I think what I am going to tell you should not, 
 if you give yourself the time to think that never 
 anybody was suffered to live at Court in my 
 Lord Marlborough's circumstances. 
 
 " I need not repeat the cause he has given the 
 King to do what he has done, nor his unwilling- 
 ness at all times to come to such extremities 
 though people do deserve it. I hope you do me 
 the justice to believe it is as much against my 
 will that I now tell you that after this it is very 
 unfit Lady Marlborough should stay with you, 
 
 316
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 since that gives her husband so just a pretence 
 of being where he should not. 
 
 " I think I might have expected you would 
 have spoken to me of it. And the King and I both 
 believing it made us stay thus long. But seeing 
 you were so far from it that you brought my 
 Lady Marlborough hither last night, makes us 
 resolve to put it off no longer, but tell you she 
 must not stay ; and that I have all the reason 
 imaginable to look upon your bringing her as 
 the strangest thing that ever was done. Nor 
 could all my kindness for you which is ever 
 ready to turn all you do the best way at any 
 other time have hindered me showing you so that 
 moment. But I considered your condition ; and 
 that made me master myself so far as not to 
 take notice of it then. 
 
 " But now I must tell you it was very unkind 
 in a sister, would have been very uncivil in an 
 equal, and I need not say I have more to claim, 
 which, though my kindness would never make 
 me exact, yet when I see the use you would 
 make of it, I must tell you I know what is due 
 to me, and expect to have it from you. Tis 
 upon that account I tell you plainly Lady 
 Marlborough must not continue with you in the 
 circumstances her lord is. 
 
 " I know this will be uneasy to you, and I am 
 sorry for it ... for I do love you as my sister, 
 and nothing but yourself can make me do other- 
 wise. ..." 
 
 Happy had it been for Anne had she bowed 
 to this arbitrary judgment ; and in after-years 
 many a regret must she have indulged, that 
 
 317
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 when the terrible Sarah might have been sub- 
 dued by the indomitable William and the spirit 
 of Mary, she herself had preserved her to be her 
 torment. 
 
 Anne, contrary to the advice of her uncle 
 Rochester, determined, however, to stand by her 
 favourite. For Sarah she would, if fate so willed 
 it, go to the block. Not that Anne relished 
 strife. But like Charles I. and her father, the 
 most delicate handling was necessary to guide 
 Anne along the path of wisdom, for, having 
 taken her course, however foolish, she would 
 not readily retrace her steps. Her reply to the 
 Queen's command was a point-blank refusal to 
 obey. But Mary was not easily baffled. Dog- 
 like in her submission to her husband, she 
 seemed, nevertheless, to have imbibed much of 
 his tenacity ; and while to him she was ever 
 compliant, there was in her government no 
 reflection of the wife's weakness. Anne's dis- 
 obedience was met with a command to Marl- 
 borough and his Countess to abide no longer in 
 the Palace of Whitehall. 
 
 It might have been argued that the Cockpit 
 was strictly not part of the Palace. But Anne, 
 on consideration, waived the point. Better be 
 a martyr than a victor in dispute. If she could 
 not retain what servants she would in her own 
 home, the home given her by her uncle, of 
 
 318
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 which she was absolute mistress in her father's 
 reign, then would she go out from it altogether, 
 and seek an asylum where tyranny could not 
 pursue her. 
 
 In her distress Anne turned to the Duchess 
 of Somerset, and begged permission to be her 
 guest at Sion House. Their Majesties had not 
 anticipated this eagerness for public martyrdom 
 on the part of the Heir-apparent. Her appeal 
 to the Duchess was an appeal for the com- 
 passion of her countrymen, an appeal for censure 
 on the King. As a proud, rough soldier, His 
 Majesty could not help feeling aggrieved at a 
 move which made him appear all too faithfully 
 the Dutch boor. And since a boor she would 
 have him, a boor he would be ! In a month or 
 two the Princess would again be a mother. 
 But her state of health was not deemed in any 
 way a palliation of her obstinacy, nor yet a 
 reason for allowing her to go unpunished. Her 
 history as a mother was a history of misfortune, 
 a history that now made a special plea for 
 tenderness. 
 
 But William's heart was cased in steel. Her 
 plight no more touched him than if, like the 
 hero of Roman mythology, a wolf had mothered 
 him. Let her go from the Cockpit, and so 
 much the better if she could find no place to 
 lay her head. Somerset he called upon to close 
 
 319
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 his doors against her. But the Duke snubbed 
 the King for his pains. His house was his own. 
 His guests would be of his own choosing. The 
 Princess was welcome to come when she would, 
 and remain while she pleased. Then William 
 exacted the only revenge in his power. The 
 Princess's guard was withdrawn, and the heiress 
 to the Throne, unprotected, notwithstanding her 
 precarious health, was robbed on the highway 
 one day in March while making a journey from 
 London to Sion House. 
 
 Thus were the sisters open enemies. William 
 left immediately for the war in Flanders, though 
 preparations were proceeding apace for an invasion 
 of England. St. Germains was bright with the 
 dawn of new hope, for if the English fleet, 
 weakened by political feuds and disheartened by 
 reverses, failed on the day of trial, the road to 
 London would be open to James. Anne, lying 
 sick and repentant at the lonely riverside mansion, 
 had plenty of leisure for bitter reflection. If 
 James should return how would he greet her ? 
 Generous he had ever been to her errors. He 
 would forgive her, of that she was assured ; but 
 never would he forget ; never again would he 
 trust the lips that had lied so glibly, or confide 
 in the heart that had led her to the camp of the 
 enemy when her loyalty might have saved him. 
 She had written offering to fly to him the 
 
 320
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 moment he landed in England. Looking out 
 over the desolate pastures at eventide, with the 
 distant Thames meandering to the sea, heavily 
 must the sadness of her state have oppressed 
 her. From the ordeal fast approaching, after 
 months of vexation and anger, crowned with a 
 decisive quarrel with her sister, she might not 
 emerge with her life. How calmly the river 
 flowed ! How peaceful was the green all round ! 
 Perhaps it would be for the best if all were over, 
 and Nature took her back to its bosom so im- 
 passive in the midst of all the turbulence of men. 
 
 And then there was young Gloucester. How 
 would it fare with him were his grandfather to 
 return ? What man owed him loyalty ? Not 
 James assuredly, for who so base as the man that 
 broke bread at the King's table, and left it to 
 ride to the tents of the enemy ! George of 
 Denmark's son should do many a doughty deed 
 before effacing his sire's ignominy. And as for 
 William, God help Gloucester should the day 
 ever come when he would cease to be the most 
 precious of all His Majesty's subjects, as the one 
 on whom the nation had built the happiest 
 expectations. 
 
 If during those long lonely days, when few 
 visitors braved the displeasure of the Queen to 
 make their way from London to Sion House, 
 Anne prayed, she yet can hardly have known 
 
 VOL. i 321 Y
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 what to pray. But heavy as was William's hand, 
 it was perhaps easier to bear than the dread 
 lest she should have to look once more into her 
 father's eyes and encounter their forgiveness. 
 
 One mid- April day Sion House was thrown 
 into sudden commotion. The Princess was ill. 
 Off to the Queen flew a messenger bearing 
 Anne's words of sorrow and of fear. The 
 humblest boor whom the courier passed on his 
 way to London might have been softened by the 
 appeal which he carried to Court. There was no 
 housewife in the rudest hovel nestling on the 
 river bank whose bosom would not have melted 
 for the disconsolate lady of Sion House, had she 
 but known what Mary was soon to know. But 
 it was the hour when the blood calls for its own ; 
 when sister yearns for sister ; and the kindest 
 hand, the softest word still leaves the stranger's 
 compassion but a stranger's. On, messenger, to 
 the Queen's ante-chamber, that the lady may 
 have the consolation she craves, and that quickly. 
 
 How cold was that ante-chamber, though out- 
 side the sun of advancing spring shone brightly 
 in the sky of blue ! The tenderness of April 
 was in the budding trees, in the glistening verdure 
 of the young grasses. Who could be hard when 
 Nature was awakening, and all the secret currents 
 of life were stirring anew ? With mysteries and 
 mysteries, comprising the subtlest things of 
 
 322
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 heaven and of earth, written broadly across the 
 face of that April day, who could brood upon 
 the childish prick of some thoughtless tongue, 
 upon the waywardness of some hour of passion ? 
 The courier sent in his message from the 
 Princess. It was very humble, infinitely touch- 
 ing in the great fear which framed every word. 
 It was to announce to Her Majesty that her hour 
 was come, " that she felt very ill indeed, much 
 worse than was usual to her." The Queen 
 heard. They waited for her answer. Then 
 Pride spoke. There was no reply for the 
 Princess. She had disobeyed the Queen. Let 
 her suffer all the pangs ; not a gentle syllable 
 from her sister's lips would assuage her woe. 
 
 Anne spoke the simple truth when she said 
 that never before had she felt so ill. As the 
 hours dragged on at Sion House those near the 
 Princess were filled with dire apprehension. 
 Mary did not come. Love had no power over 
 her. But the dread grew upon them that the 
 Queen would have to come, driven thither by 
 the grim compulsion of death. 
 
 At length a child's strange cry of wonder 
 fluttered the hearts of Anne's ladies. In that 
 new voice, so thin, so weak, one might discern a 
 feeble little note of anger, of reproach, of re- 
 bellion. They had not given him half a chance 
 of life, these strangers. They were enemies, all 
 
 323
 
 of them. They had robbed him of he knew not 
 what, something which they possessed, but which 
 he would never enjoy. Tired of life almost 
 before his baby eyes had peeped their amazement 
 upon its light, Gloucester's baby brother tarried 
 only while they christened him " George," after 
 his father, then expired. 
 
 Now should Mary come ! She had turned her 
 back on Love, but Death was her master. 
 The tyranny of the situation filled her with rage. 
 She had shown such firmness, such queenly 
 pride. And, after all, she should make that 
 dreary journey to Somerset's mansion. 
 
 Harshness, by some inexplicable inter-play of 
 emotions, often finds refuge in still deeper 
 extremes of harshness at the moment when one 
 should expect repentance. Knowing as she did 
 what Anne had suffered, Mary must have beheld 
 with some degree of horror her own display of 
 unsisterly feeling. As her carriage jolted over 
 the rough roads to Brentford, there was ample 
 time for reflection. The Marlboroughs had 
 come between her and Anne. The Princess had 
 been unwise, obstinate, disloyal. But Anne was, 
 she knew, the spoiled child upon whom King 
 William had tried to impose an unendurable 
 yoke. Nor could she close her eyes to the 
 services of Anne as she and William crept to 
 the Throne. . . . 
 
 324
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 And now her baby boy was dead ! . . . Had 
 things been a little different, had there been 
 peace instead of strife, had Sion House been 
 cheered during these recent weeks with bright 
 hopes, instead of being overcast with gloomiest 
 apprehensions, might not the infant have lived ? 
 She had gratified her resentment. To the de- 
 fiance of the Marlboroughs she had hurled back 
 defiance, but at what a cost if this boy might 
 have been preserved to England and the King ! 
 
 Whatever remorse tormented the Queen as 
 she made her way along the river-bank on this 
 enforced pilgrimage to Sion House, she was still 
 unsubdued on entering Anne's chamber. 
 
 " I have made the first step by coming to you, 
 and I now expect that you should make the 
 next by removing Lady Marlborough ! " Such 
 was the Queen's greeting to the unfortunate 
 Princess who had not yet emerged from the 
 portals of death. 
 
 Anne lay on her bed, white as a sheet. Not 
 far away there was a tiny body swathed in its 
 grave-clothes. To feel that little heart beat, and 
 the baby limbs grow warm and pliant as it 
 nestled to her bosom, she would have yielded 
 just then her heritage. If Mary would but look 
 at the little thing, touch its waxen fingerlets, 
 speak to her of the dainty features, the wondrous 
 eyes so swiftly darkened, the lips whose first 
 
 325
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 kiss, delicate as the heart of a rosebud, had 
 ravished with never-to-be-forgotten sweetness 
 the mother's soul ! Such talk would be balm to 
 Anne. But Mary had come because she should, 
 or give the scandalmongers more matter for 
 gossip, and she had nothing more comforting to 
 say in the home of suffering and death than, 
 " Dismiss Lady Marlborough ! " 
 
 The Princess's lips trembled. She could have 
 turned on her pillow and wept with pity for 
 herself, like the simplest plebeian in the land. 
 But she was more truly a Stuart than the proud, 
 hard Queen. It is so easy to be proud and hard 
 when flesh and spirit are an imperious unity ; 
 so difficult when the sinking heart, the failing 
 pulse envelop the soul as in a leaden casket. 
 But Anne, with the eyes of the Queen's ladies 
 upon her, bravely choked back the rising sobs, 
 bravely repressed the tears that would fall in bitter 
 floods, bravely steadied her voice as she replied : 
 
 " I have never in all my life disobeyed your 
 Majesty except in this one particular ; which 
 1 hope, at some time or other, will appear as un- 
 reasonable to your Majesty as it does now to me." 
 
 If place there was for eavesdropping, the 
 Countess of Marlborough heard, no doubt, the 
 Queen's command and Anne's disobedience. 
 
 In the long story of the follies of kings and 
 princes, higher spirit had never been shown in 
 
 326
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 defence of a worthless favourite. Were it 
 possible to redeem Sarah from selfishness and 
 arrogance, were it possible to transmute the base 
 metal of sordid service into the pure gold of 
 chivalrous devotion, Anne had done it when, 
 though sick unto death, she flouted the Queen. 
 But if such miracles might be wrought, it was not 
 upon the like of Sarah. 
 
 These few angry words were all that passed 
 between the sisters. The Queen sailed from the 
 room as majestically as she had come. 
 
 This memorable visit of Her Majesty to Sion 
 House closed with a tableau as cruel almost as its 
 opening. Prince George escorted Her Majesty 
 from the mansion to her coach. The unfortunate 
 father of the dead babe had at least done her no 
 wrong. Sarah was not his favourite. On the 
 contrary, her will must often have clashed with 
 the Prince's, and then it was George who should 
 yield. But Her Majesty chose to forget that it 
 was so, chose to forget that this big, dog-like 
 fellow, so honestly devoted to Anne, had lost that 
 day a son. 
 
 She might have called the dead baby " George " 
 just once, as though she would have him back 
 amongst them, if the boon of life were hers to 
 give. But there was no word of pity for the 
 father, only queenly indignation that her word 
 was not law in his household. 
 
 327
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Back at the Palace once more, the Queen's 
 conscience smote her for her harshness. To her 
 ladies she spoke of what had passed, and expressed 
 sorrow that she had allowed her anger to carry 
 her far beyond the bounds of good taste, under 
 circumstances which might have thawed to pity 
 William himself. While the Queen indulged in 
 useless regrets Anne was already the victim of a 
 raging fever. While it ran its course her life 
 hung upon a thread, but Sion House saw the 
 Queen no more. 
 
 Meanwhile great events were impending. 
 Louis was completing his plans for the invasion 
 of England. The French fleet rode off La 
 Hogue. Ashore, the camp was alive with the 
 bustle of preparation for embarking troops and 
 stores. King James received there the letter 
 written by Anne imploring his forgiveness. To 
 the exiled monarch that letter was a good omen. 
 The bluff old Jacobite who delivered it could 
 not, however, forgive filial treason as easily as the 
 fond parent, eager only to find excuses for the 
 sins of his children. When James spoke kindly 
 of Anne he apostrophised her in the choicest 
 terms of a vocabulary learned in a long ap- 
 prenticeship to the sea. 
 
 While the country was drifting to this perilous 
 crisis Queen Mary consigned the Earl of Marl- 
 borough to the safe keeping of the Tower of 
 
 328
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 London. It was a measure of prudence on her 
 part, for the decisive battle in the Channel could 
 not be much longer delayed, and Her Majesty 
 had only too much reason to fear that the olden 
 glory of the British fleet would again be tarnished. 
 The ships' officers were for the most part fervent 
 Jacobites. Admiral Russell, the Commander, had 
 repented of his share in the Revolution, and was 
 now in communication with the exiled King, and 
 had actually arranged the terms upon which he 
 would leave to the invaders a clear course to the 
 English shore. All that Russell required was that 
 the enemy should slink out to sea under the cover 
 of night. By day he could not let them pass un- 
 challenged, for that would involve shame greater 
 than he dared incur, and would, moreover, be 
 a challenge to his seamen to which they might 
 reply right gallantly without word of command. 
 William was in Flanders, and the Queen was left 
 all alone, at the mercy of a disloyal fleet, a doubt- 
 ful army, and a people indifferent and disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 Keen, therefore, as was Anne's distress at the 
 captivity of Sarah's lord, none knew better than 
 she how thoroughly it was justified. Any day 
 James might be on the coast, and Marlborough 
 would gallop to his camp. That was a risk which 
 Mary dare not regard lightly. With the genius 
 of Marlborough to guide him, and the army and 
 
 329
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 navy largely officered by Jacobites, there could 
 be no doubt as to the issue of the contest. 
 
 While Mary, at Kensington Palace, awaited with 
 intrepid spirit, but deep anxiety, the fateful decree 
 soon to be registered in the shock of battle, the 
 patient at Sion House was possessed, as she wrote 
 herself, " by a thousand melancholy thoughts." 
 The one thing wanted to complete her misery was 
 that Lady Marlborough should be sent to the 
 Tower to keep her husband company. To Sarah, 
 who in correspondence with Anne was nearly always 
 " Mrs. Freeman," the Princess, under the less ex- 
 pressive norn de plume of Morley, wrote as follows : 
 
 " I cannot help fearing they should hinder you 
 from coming to me, though how they can do that 
 without making you a prisoner, 1 cannot guess 
 
 " Let them do what they please, nothing shall 
 ever vex me, so I can have the opportunity of 
 seeing dear Mrs. Freeman, and I swear I would 
 live on bread and water between two walls with- 
 out repining ; for as long as you are kind, nothing 
 can ever be mortification to your faithful Mrs. 
 Morley, who wishes she may never enjoy a 
 moment's happiness in this world or the next, if 
 ever she should prove false to you." 
 
 Moved by a happy inspiration, the Queen 
 appealed to the chivalry of the fleet, on which 
 depended everything. To degrade the Admiral 
 where so many of his officers were equally false 
 to their allegiance would have been madness. 
 She sent to them a message declaring that in 
 
 330
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 defiance of her advisers she still trusted them. 
 She had heard of their disaffection, yet would 
 she leave them their commissions. Their Queen 
 was in their hands. They would not betray a 
 helpless woman and the glory of their country. 
 
 That appeal was a master-stroke. A woman's 
 tact, one might perhaps say a woman's naive 
 impudence, saved everything. 
 
 Tourville commanded the French fleet. He 
 refused to slink out to sea under cover of night 
 in deference to Russell's wishes. He was thinking, 
 not of the interests of James, but of the glory of 
 France. His solicitude was not to save the 
 English admiral's face, but to win the laurels 
 against which he staked his life. And why not ? 
 Misfortune ever dogged James. In his cause no 
 battle could be won. There were the hearts of 
 the English beating for him, while the sailors of 
 France, of late the mistress of the seas, were 
 fighting for him ; yet Fate would not be defeated. 
 His destiny was written and could not be effaced 
 by the blood of the valiant. 
 
 The glorious fortune that had for so long 
 attended upon the Armadas of France was 
 completely reversed at La Hogue ; and James, 
 in the camp of the enemy, cried out his admira- 
 tion, as we have already heard, for the gallant 
 fellows who strange confusion wanted him for 
 their King, yet here achieved his ruin. 
 
 331
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 WELL might Mary have echoed her father's 
 applause of the victory of La Hogue 
 when news reached Kensington that the French 
 had been swept from the Channel ; that she was 
 safe. 
 
 Now might Marlborough do his worst, and 
 Sarah likewise. Now might their mistress revile 
 King and Queen to her household. Let her 
 promise to fly to her father. The keeping of 
 that promise would carry her a long way, and 
 by paths too dangerous for the luxurious Lady 
 Anne. 
 
 La Hogue had conquered her as well as 
 James. She had played with treason, and treason 
 had failed. But true to that preference for 
 covert hostility rather than open war which so 
 distinguished her character, Anne, as soon as she 
 was convalescent, assumed the part of dutiful 
 Princess. She would pay her respects to the 
 Queen, and Dr. Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worces- 
 ter, was enlisted as peace-maker. 
 
 Mary's reply was couched in a vein of languid 
 332
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 contempt. La Hogue had freed her from any 
 necessity that had hitherto existed for deceiving 
 the public. Through the good Bishop Mary 
 replied : 
 
 " I have received yours by the Bishop of 
 Worcester, and have little to say to it ; since 
 you cannot but know, that as I never use com- 
 pliments, so now they cannot serve. 'Tis none 
 of my fault that we live at this distance, and I 
 have endeavoured to show my willingness to do 
 otherwise, and I will do no more. 
 
 " Don't give yourself any unnecessary trouble ; 
 for be assured 'tis not words can make us live 
 together as we ought. You know what I 
 required of you. And now I tell you, if you 
 doubted it before, that I cannot change my 
 mind, but expect to be complied with, or you 
 must not wonder that I doubt of your kindness. 
 
 " You can give me no other marks that will 
 satisfy me, nor can I put any other construction 
 upon your actions than what all the world must 
 that sees them. These things do not hinder me 
 being very glad to hear that you are well and 
 wishing that you may continue so ; and that you 
 may yet, while it is in your power, oblige me to 
 be your affectionate sister, MARIE R." 
 
 Thus bluntly was Anne told that her presence 
 at Court was not desired unless the Countess 
 of Marlborough was dismissed. But the tone 
 was not one of anger, rather was it charged with 
 contemptuous indifference, as though what she 
 commanded was for form's sake, and that she
 
 cared little whether she was obeyed or defied. 
 How much more animated would the style have 
 been had Mary enjoyed the stimulus of perusing 
 this letter from the invalid at Sion House to 
 Lady Marlborough : 
 
 " Sure never anybody was so used by a sister ! 
 But I thank God I have nothing to reproach 
 myself withal in this business, but the more I 
 think of all that has passed the better I am 
 satisfied. And if I had done otherwise 1 should 
 have deserved to have been the scorn of the 
 world, and to be trampled upon as much as my 
 enemies would have me. . . . Farewell ! I 
 hope in Christ you will never think more of 
 leaving me, for I would be sacrificed to do you 
 the least service, and nothing but death can ever 
 make me part with you." 
 
 Some members of Anne's household, notwith- 
 standing the temper of the Queen, would have 
 had the Prince and Princess go to Court to 
 compliment Her Majesty on the triumph of La 
 Hogue. But George had no share in that 
 victory. King and Queen had left him ashore 
 when so much glory was to be won at sea. It 
 was a time to pity himself rather than to rejoice 
 with his persecutors. And so Prince and 
 Princess were silent amidst the chorus of flattery 
 which saluted the delighted Queen. 
 
 Without presenting themselves at Court, 
 therefore, to offer their congratulations, Anne 
 
 334
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 and Prince George left Sion House for Bath, 
 where the visitors were received with every 
 manifestation of loyalty which a fashionable 
 watering-place might be expected to accord 
 patrons so valuable. The Queen's displeasure, 
 however, pursued her sister to the West. 
 Nottingham, as Lord Chamberlain, wrote to the 
 Mayor of Bath : 
 
 " The Queen has been informed that yourself 
 and your brethren have attended the Princess with 
 the same respect and ceremony as have been 
 usually paid to the Royal Family. Perhaps you 
 may not have heard what occasion Her Majesty 
 has had to be displeased with the Princess, and 
 therefore I am commanded to acquaint you that 
 you are not for the future to pay Her Highness 
 any respect or ceremony without leave from Her 
 Majesty, who does not doubt of receiving from 
 you and your brethren this public mark of your 
 duty." 
 
 This admonition to the loyalists of Bath to 
 moderate their transports rather amused the 
 Princess. To be forgotten by the Court would 
 have annoyed her. But that the Queen should 
 grudge her the obeisances of the fathers of Bath 
 and the cheers of the people, was delicious proof 
 of her importance. Lady Marlborough, who had 
 no perception of the droll, was irritated at the 
 sudden change in the demeanour of the Corpora- 
 tion. Sunday came, and the Mayor failed to 
 
 335
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 accompany Anne to her devotions. Sarah's 
 annoyance was depicted on her countenance. 
 Could a word from her have caused Bath and its 
 beneficent waters, together with its Mayor and 
 Corporation, to be swallowed up in the earth, 
 Sarah would have spoken it. But Anne was 
 amused. The thing to her was a jest. Tyranny 
 had made itself ridiculous, and its victim, wise in 
 her generation, merely laughed, knowing that 
 all the wit in Bath would enjoy the sport the 
 Queen was making at the expense of her dignity. 
 While Anne was in the country the scandal 
 of her relations with the Court was only a matter 
 of gossip, but when she returned to town the 
 bitterness of the feud was apparent to every eye. 
 The Princess, instead of returning to the Cock- 
 pit, settled at Berkeley House, Piccadilly, being 
 vouchsafed no more recognition by the State 
 than if she were a private lady. Her guards, 
 which had been withdrawn when she went to 
 Sion House, had never been restored, a theme 
 upon which the wags turned many a squib. One 
 of these took the form of an imaginary mandate 
 from the Lord Chamberlain to the bellman of 
 Piccadilly, in which that worthy was commanded 
 to abstain from paying the Princess " the cere- 
 mony " with which in his night walks he usually 
 disturbed the repose of their Majesties' loyal 
 subjects ! Nor were thieves to be thwarted in 
 
 336
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 any attentions they might bestow on Berkeley 
 House, for the Princess was neither to be 
 " regarded by day nor guarded by night." 
 
 Amidst the warfare of Kensington Palace and 
 Berkeley House there was one who had the 
 freedom of both houses, one who in both enjoyed 
 some measure of love. It was the little master 
 of Campden House, William Duke of Gloucester. 
 
 Campden House was from 1690 the boy's 
 permanent residence wherever his mother went. 
 The place had been chosen for the sake of his 
 health. But the relations of the Royal sisters, 
 and the desire of both sides to keep the boy out- 
 side their quarrels, helped doubtless to influence 
 an arrangement which removed him to neutral 
 territory. 
 
 Almost from Gloucester's birth there was a 
 tacit understanding that he belonged in part to 
 King and Queen. When Anne returned to the 
 Cockpit, soon after his birth, his nursery was 
 established in the former apartments of Louise 
 de Querouaille at Whitehall, which, as has been 
 seen, were secured to Anne through the special 
 intervention of the King. There the boy was 
 nearer to the Queen than to his mother, and 
 when, as often happened, the Royal ladies were 
 indisposed to meet, the arrangement enabled 
 them to visit the child without risking a dis- 
 agreeable encounter. 
 
 VOL. i 337 z
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 The little Duke's nursery at Whitehall, to- 
 gether with the greater portion of the Palace, 
 was destroyed by fire in 1691. At the time the 
 boy was luckily not in residence there, as he was 
 staying with his mother at Lord Craven's house 
 at Kensington. But Queen Mary had a narrow 
 escape of her life, being dragged from her bed 
 half asleep into St. James's Park. From this 
 time Kensington became the favourite residence 
 of their Majesties, and Gloucester was established 
 as their neighbour at Campden House. The air 
 at Kensington suited him ; but had William 
 chosen another quarter for his London abode the 
 salubrity of its air would, perhaps, have been 
 found equally indispensable to the young Prince. 
 
 Gloucester's story belongs to the saddest annals 
 of childhood. Born to bless the Princess Anne 
 for a few brief years, he was suddenly snatched 
 away, that after the light she might feel a thousand 
 times more than ever the darkness. And when 
 her boy was lost to her she had not even the 
 solace of knowing that his short life was free 
 from shadows. Doomed to an early grave from 
 his birth, Prince George and the Princess thought 
 to make him a model of Royal accomplishments. 
 They would transform the delicate flower into 
 an oak of the forest ; and the flower bravely 
 raised its head, as though it would flourish under 
 the most pitiless hands. But the more bravely 
 
 338
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 it opened its tender petals to the roughest day, 
 the surer was its fate ; and soon there was neither 
 oak nor flower, only the tears of those who had 
 misunderstood and were now disconsolate. 
 
 Anne had been so unfortunate with her other 
 children that Gloucester, though a sturdy infant, 
 was at first smiled upon with misgivings. Was 
 he, too, tarrying but for a little while, to dis- 
 appear when he had stolen all their hearts, 
 leaving them poorer and sadder than ever ? The 
 endearments lavished on him had in their 
 pleasure something of apprehension. As the 
 years rolled by, however, they began to think 
 that Anne had in one of her children escaped 
 the curse that seemed to wither her offspring in 
 the very hour of nativity. If fear did not vanish 
 altogether, it retreated at least to a distance, and 
 around the boy revolved whatever was most 
 charming in the life of the Court. The King 
 was too much a warrior not to feel some interest 
 in a little fellow who was a born soldier, full 
 of spirit, and, though fragile, gifted with strange 
 endurance. 
 
 William watched him less as a prince than as 
 a cadet, who some day might lead battalions and 
 charge with flying squadrons at roll of drum. 
 He sometimes forgot that he was Anne's son, 
 and that the blood of the despised George 
 flowed in his veins. He built, perhaps, castles 
 
 339
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 in the air, as the roughest soldier will, and 
 promised himself that, by-and-by, he would 
 make such a warrior of this young tyrant that 
 men would say " Orange drilled him well ! " 
 For the present the ladies might caress him. 
 In his long clothes he was no better than a girl. 
 Let his mother have him. But in a few years 
 he would tear him from Her Highness's apron- 
 strings, enlist him for a soldier, and breed in him 
 the true temper of the camp. 
 
 Little Gloucester was carried over every day 
 from Campden House to Kensington Palace to 
 see his aunt, and this was the chief pleasure of 
 the Queen, if pleasure there was in her life. 
 Her husband came and went. England had 
 proved but a poor prize to him, and little rest 
 did he ever find in its fair domains. From hired 
 generalissimo of the Empire he had suddenly 
 become the peer of his old antagonist, Louis XIV 
 But the sword was not for William merely an 
 aid of fortune. It had in itself some magic that 
 gave him happiness. 
 
 And so, instead of resting on his laurels, 
 dreams as splendid, as aspiring, as impossible, 
 as ever occupied the mind of the Grand 
 Monarque, were his only refuge from the ennui 
 of Royal state. But while her lord's mind ran 
 on battles and the welding of new empires, in 
 which perhaps William of Orange would find 
 
 340
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 himself at the head of a confederation extending 
 from the North Sea to the Carpathians, his Con- 
 sort could not fly for refuge to the battlefield. 
 
 Mary had not one of all her kindred to console 
 her, had not one devoted friend whom she could 
 trust. The man she loved with ah 1 her soul was 
 indifferent, was worse than indifferent, was un- 
 faithful. Her sister was her enemy, yet must 
 she lavish her love on something. And there 
 was only Gloucester to claim a part in the 
 wealth of affection, in the reservoirs of tender- 
 ness, that, uncared for and despised, made half 
 the childless woman's weight of misery. With 
 spendthrift prodigality was the child's bid for 
 love rewarded. And in return he was perhaps 
 the only being who really loved Queen Mary. 
 
 Kensington Palace was a dull Court when the 
 King was present, because he could never expand 
 amongst Englishmen ; duller when he was away, 
 because then Mary was distracted with fear lest 
 her policy should, by its success, make the King 
 jealous, or by its failure anger him. The one 
 bright spot in Royal Kensington was the nursery 
 at Campden House, and brighter grew the light 
 as the boy grew older and every day more a 
 tyrant. For his tyranny the ladies adored him, 
 and the men said, " Such spirit ! Egad, his is 
 the right Royal mettle ! Devil a knee will he 
 ever bend to Pope or people ! " 
 
 341
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 To William they said the toy he loved best 
 was a sword, and that he might not suffer in so 
 worthy a taste through neglect of it, Campden 
 House was turned into a sort of miniature 
 arsenal. Cannon were mounted, wooden swords 
 forged for baby fists were stored in the armouries, 
 and toy muskets were stacked for a boy 
 battalion. 
 
 On Easter day 1694 a revolution was effected 
 at Campden House. The Duke of Gloucester 
 donned for the first time male attire. Lady 
 Fitzharding stood sentinel while the hero of 
 England stepped into breeches. And a white 
 camblet with silver loops and buttons completed 
 the Royal toilet. The parents were enraptured, 
 the ladies pestered His Highness with kisses. 
 It was a day of jubilee for all the Court, save 
 one, and he was the hero of the festival. A 
 scowl was on the seigneur's brow. His lips 
 were pouted. He was lamenting his old clothes, 
 which were an easier fit than the new ones. 
 This was a misfortune for the tailor, who was 
 tried by court-martial and condemned to be 
 punished by the urchins of the Duke's regiment. 
 This regiment of " House Guards," as Gloucester 
 called his companions, was the delight of the 
 town. 
 
 If the bloods of the Court in the days of 
 Charles were the terror of husbands, the baby- 
 
 342
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 swashbucklers of Campden House were now the 
 terror of tradesmen and servants, who dare not 
 cuff their nobilities on peril of losing their places. 
 They had a review in Kensington Gardens, 
 attended by the King, and there they marched 
 and counter-marched, attacked and retreated, to 
 the delight of their martinet-chief. His Majesty 
 was enchanted. If only this precocious youngster 
 with the passion for steel were his son, or at 
 least, not Anne's brat, how loudly he would 
 laugh where now he only smiled 1 
 
 ' Sir," said Gloucester, with a most comical 
 assumption of the airs of a gallant, in acknow- 
 ledging the Royal compliments showered on his 
 forces, " I and my regiment will follow you to 
 the war." 
 
 It was the finest joke William had heard since 
 setting foot in this accursed England. He 
 roared with laughter. At that moment he could 
 almost forgive the Duke for having a mother. 
 But the terrible Gloucester was not done. He 
 turned to the Queen : 
 
 " My mamma once upon a time had guards as 
 well as you," he said. " Why has she not got 
 them now ? " 
 
 At this allusion to the indignity inflicted upon 
 the Lady of Berkeley House, the King and Queen 
 and the ladies and gentlemen of the Royal circle 
 were dumbfounded. His Majesty was the first 
 
 343
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 to recover his presence of mind, and his repartee 
 was a soldier's. He presented the drummer with 
 two guineas, presumably as a reward for the loyal 
 fire which he put into his drumsticks at an 
 awkward moment for his Sovereign. And the 
 question remained unanswered why the Princess 
 Anne, though next in the line of succession to 
 the Throne, should be denied the military honours 
 due to her rank. 
 
 Thus it would seem that almost the first thing 
 which dawned upon Gloucester when he began 
 to speculate in childish fashion upon the duty of 
 kinship and the privileges of Royalty, was that 
 his mother was out of favour at Court. He 
 loved her dearly, and the question about her 
 guards which he addressed to the Queen, 
 emboldened by their Majesties' delight and 
 laughter at his loyal display, was his first effort 
 in her defence. It was an ideal opportunity for 
 retracing his steps, had William but the grace to 
 seize it. The public loved the boy, and an 
 incident which presented him as a Prince of 
 Peace would have delighted the country as a 
 happy issue to his mother's troubles, and a still 
 happier omen for his own future. But the 
 occasion passed without any unbending on the 
 King's part, and at Berkeley House it served 
 no other purpose than to raise a laugh at His 
 Majesty's expense. 
 
 344
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Open enmity continued therefore, despite the 
 bond which Gloucester formed between the two 
 households. To the child it was all an exasperat- 
 ing puzzle. Why would not mamma walk over 
 to the Palace with him ? He would pledge his 
 Royal word for her reception. He would pledge 
 his oath, if mamma would pardon him for swear- 
 ing, as of course he would have to swear by-and- 
 by when he was a man. But Anne would not 
 take his word ; would not let him swear ; would 
 not make him the happiest little boy on earth, by 
 doing this thing for him. Nor would Prince 
 George escape his petitions. And George, no 
 doubt, said, " It was not possible." There were 
 certain large black bottles to be emptied. Duty 
 first, duty always, was the Spartan way ! 
 
 But another peacemaker than young Gloucester 
 was hovering nigh to Kensington. The years 
 wasted in strife were never to be effaced by the 
 kindness of later days. Mary of Orange was 
 only thirty-three when the disease which was in 
 that day the scourge of Europe chose the greatest 
 lady in the land as its victim. It passed by the 
 hovels of the poor, the mansions of the grandees, 
 Berkeley House itself, and in Kensington Palace 
 small-pox struck down the Queen. 
 
 This was December of 1694. Christmas was 
 at hand, but at Court the season was rather one 
 of mourning than of joy, for William had come 
 
 8*5
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 back from Flanders disappointed with the fortune 
 of war, and was grimly absorbed in new plans for 
 retrieving his laurels when once again he should 
 take the field. 
 
 On the frozen turf before the Palace the frost 
 glistened under the winter sky. London, away in 
 the distance, slept. All the Royal household at 
 Kensington slept too, save the Queen. She had 
 not retired. She was indisposed ; and some strange 
 spirit of prophecy visited her in her chamber, 
 warning her that her days were numbered. At 
 the whispered prophecy she did not smile, proud 
 in the strength, the confidence of youth. She was 
 at the age when one is still young enough to feel 
 immortal. Why should she die ? There were 
 old men, old women, in the Palace, in the town. 
 Why not one of them ? She had only just 
 begun to master the science of government. 
 She might surely ask for thirty years more from 
 the Lifegiver. But though the poison which was 
 to destroy her had as yet hardly entered her veins, 
 and though she had no notion of the disease which 
 had settled upon her, Mary apparently foresaw 
 her doom, and bowed to it. 
 
 Through that long winter's night the Queen 
 spent the hours reading letters and documents, 
 and feeding with them the fire burning in her 
 cabinet. The blaze did not slacken. There was 
 plenty to burn. 
 
 346
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 And then, when the flames held the secrets 
 which she would not have us share, there was 
 still one task between her and the bed from 
 which she would never rise again. When her 
 tongue would be for ever silent, and whilst still 
 the softening influence of death pervaded the 
 Palace, she would speak from her shroud to 
 the King. In life he had been deaf to her 
 pleading, marble to her devotion. Mayhap, when 
 he stood alone on the Throne he owed to her, 
 his soul would expand to behold what she had 
 sacrificed to win his love. Sin 1 There was no 
 sin when William had need of her. Love ! There 
 was no such thing of price to her save the Arctic 
 warmth of his narrow soul. And for that feeble 
 warmth, that pale, faint glow, she would sell 
 all her kindred, had sold them, but never was 
 she to know it for her very own. 
 
 The Queen's last letter to be read by the 
 King after her death concerned, it is thought, 
 Elizabeth Villiers, the woman who enjoyed that 
 affection for which she would have exchanged 
 the Crown of England. The doomed Queen's 
 face grew stern as she wrote. The poison was 
 stealing through her blood. The pen had a 
 strange touch to her feverish fingers. Often 
 she looked towards the door as though expect- 
 ing it would open. Whom did she look for ? 
 Was it the King ? Was it for the woman who 
 
 347
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 had for so long been the enemy of her peace ? 
 Was it for some visitor strayed from the world 
 for which she was preparing so diligently? Though 
 who that visitor should be she knew not, nor 
 yet a reason for an envoy from the unknown. 
 But her brain was on fire, peopling her cabinet 
 with spectral faces, seen dimly through eyes 
 buried in the caverns of other eyes, like the 
 terrifying reflections of impalpable mirrors. 
 
 One can see her shudder. Perhaps it was 
 only the chill which creeps over the fever- 
 stricken like a mantle of ice that set her 
 trembling in every nerve ; and that neither the 
 ghosts of fancy, nor aught that might be in 
 the darksome corridors without, had power to 
 dismay Mary. For none but a brave woman 
 could thus prepare, as she was doing, for the 
 eternal imprisonment of the tomb, which she 
 saw wide open, yawning for her custody. 
 
 The whole secret of that last letter to the 
 King, who had so grievously wronged her, exists 
 only in that world where the thoughts born of 
 human minds may have some immortal being. 
 But no portrait remains of it in the shape of 
 letter or ample tradition. Perhaps it contained 
 a sublime forgiveness. Perhaps the patience of 
 years failed her at the end, and that reproach, so 
 long withheld in the hope of tardy reparation, 
 flowed unchecked when death intruded to ensure 
 
 348
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 that the day of her lord's atonement would never 
 dawn for her. 
 
 At Berkeley House that gossip was ever most 
 liked which dealt unkindly with Mary. Amongst 
 other things, they said that she consoled her- 
 self for William's coldness by loving Shrewsbury, 
 the notorious " King of Hearts," who now was 
 Prime Minister, and a Duke. But the tongues 
 of the malicious and the thoughtless were 
 suddenly hushed at the news that the young 
 Queen was a victim of small-pox. It was not 
 so much that all bitterness was allayed, as that 
 all were subdued by fear at the presence of a 
 deadly enemy, merciless in its rapacity, ruthless 
 in its grim surprises, against which the youngest, 
 the bravest, the highest, the greediest of life, 
 possessed no charm. 
 
 Anne sent a lady to the Palace, begging the 
 King's permission to visit her sister. But she 
 had heard Mary's voice for the last time that 
 day at Sion House, when the Queen, in the 
 pride of glowing health, would bend the sick 
 woman to her will. Anne's request was not 
 granted. The Princess, perhaps, was not dis- 
 pleased that it should be so, for the dying 
 woman was stricken with the disease in its most 
 virulent form. To see her was to court death, 
 and the mistress of Berkeley House was not 
 resigned to die. 
 
 349
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Too agonising to dwell upon was Mary's death. 
 The unhappy creature, one mass of suppurating 
 sores, was racked with such tortures as melted 
 to pity the dour soldier- King so blunt of feeling. 
 William moved his camp-bed to her chamber, 
 and there he lay, silent, morose, thunderous, 
 a grim sentinel at the threshold of eternity, 
 until the sufferer passed the portals and he was 
 alone. 
 
 350
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 death of Queen Mary was followed by 
 tumult in many counties. With her had 
 vanished whatever shadow of apology could be 
 offered for William's sovereignty. He was a 
 stranger in the land. What would England do ? 
 
 Happily for William, the swift tragedy of 
 Mary's death revealed Anne once more as the 
 creature of ephemeral emotions. It revealed, too, 
 the shallowness of the professions of repentance 
 and loyalty she had conveyed to her father. 
 
 It filled her with alarm for the fortunes of her 
 family, as represented, however, by herself, that 
 the sceptre had passed altogether out of their 
 hands, and that the House of Orange now ruled 
 the land. In the absence of an alliance amongst 
 the great families in favour of her father, the 
 risings in the country were destined to failure, 
 merely serving to clear away all doubts as to the 
 security of William's Throne, and to increase 
 uncertainty as to the identity of its next 
 occupant. 
 
 In her perplexity Anne was guided, as ever, 
 351
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 by self-interest. The King might marry again, 
 might succeed in altering the succession. Nothing 
 would perhaps please him better than that she 
 should retire into obscurity and permit him to 
 hatch what schemes he pleased, without being 
 obliged to consider her popularity with the 
 people or the influence of her supporters in 
 Parliament. But if the design of establishing 
 an Orange dynasty in England which could not 
 fail to have entered his mind was ever seriously 
 entertained by William, Anne certainly never 
 dreamt of obliterating herself to oblige His 
 Majesty. On the contrary, the Princess went to 
 Kensington House to offer her condolences, and 
 the King received her with unexpected civility. 
 
 According to Lewis Jenkins, the faithful 
 Welshman who has left behind so detailed a 
 diary of the life of Gloucester, the Princess Anne 
 was carried in a sedan chair from Campden House 
 to Kensington Palace. She was at this time 
 only thirty years old, but was already so com- 
 pletely a victim of gout that she had to be 
 borne upstairs into the audience chamber. 
 
 When the Princess, in her mourning robes, 
 entered the presence of the monarch to whom 
 she had so long been a stranger, each, overcome 
 by the pitiful tragedy but just enacted beneath 
 that roof, burst into tears. 
 
 The emotion of these two people so antagonistic 
 352
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 by temperament suffuses with light some of the 
 deepest springs of human feeling. Anne brought 
 back to William's mind the years gone by, when 
 he had taken from St. James's Palace a young 
 and confiding girl, with mind unformed, and 
 heart open to receive the impressions he would 
 stamp thereon. And it had been the business of 
 his life to harden that gentle heart, to uproot 
 from it every kindly feeling implanted in her 
 English home, to teach her to scorn her father, 
 and to hate the sister who had so weakly lent 
 herself to his ambitions. Mary and Anne were 
 in early life linked by the tenderest of all ties, 
 the memory of a mother idealised by the un- 
 questioning love, the illimitable imagination of 
 childhood. Only William himself knew what his 
 share had been in destroying that gentle tie, and 
 with it all the sweetness, and wisdom, and com- 
 prehension, the seedlings of which die somehow 
 in the slaying of a pure, unselfish love. If 
 William of Orange wept tears, it was for some- 
 thing at which a nobler man would have wept 
 tears of blood. 
 
 It was William's kindness that unmanned the 
 Princess. His roughness she could endure with 
 equanimity ; she was schooled to it. But gentle 
 words on the lips of " Calliban " dissolved her 
 self-control. And in an access of self-pity for 
 all she had suffered at his hands, and through 
 
 VOL. i 353 A A
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 him at her sister's ; for all the sweetness of which 
 he had plundered her life, her voice failed her, 
 and she gave way to unrestrained grief. 
 
 The King and Princess were closeted together 
 for almost an hour. And the first fruits of the 
 newly established peace was the termination of 
 Marlborough's disgrace. Not that the King had 
 modified his opinion of the Earl. To the end 
 he would despise the general who had deserted 
 his colours in the field. But it was necessary to 
 yield on this point to Anne. If when he had 
 Mary's assistance, Anne had successfully resisted 
 his dictation in this matter, she was little likely 
 to surrender now. And if the Marlboroughs 
 could not be got rid of, the only alternative was 
 to make it their interest to support his Throne 
 by restoring them to favour. 
 
 The period immediately following this re- 
 conciliation w r as the happiest Anne had known 
 since the Revolution. Gloucester continued at 
 Campden House, marching and counter-marching 
 with his boy battalion, and fighting mimic battles, 
 in which hard knocks were taken and given by 
 the youthful bloods who, in the excitement of 
 the fight, sometimes visited their Royal chief with 
 his full share of scars. 
 
 These were, however, the lightest of his punish- 
 ments. The boy did not grow stronger as the 
 years rolled on. His mind developed rapidly. 
 
 354
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 He grew strangely precocious, as though nature, 
 having set but a narrow span to his days, would 
 make his life in some sort a complete miniature 
 of the full term of manhood. He was but five 
 when we saw him, mounted on his pony, leading 
 his regiment past the King and then confounding 
 His Majesty with pert curiosity. But his petted 
 and pampered youth ended early. 
 
 Then came the storm and stress of his maturer 
 years storm and stress at six, when they tried 
 to awaken the Royal spirit of a great King in 
 a baby ! 
 
 His father and mother put their wise heads 
 together to evolve a system by which the delicate 
 child could be made a lusty lad Own Prince of 
 a race of sea-kings. The poor little fellow some- 
 times could not walk alone. It was part of his 
 infirmity that at every step he feared to fall. 
 The size of his head indicated a tendency to 
 water on the brain. A healthy child of five 
 requires careful watching and restraint, rather 
 than any incentive to exercise. That Gloucester 
 was afraid to take a step alone might have warned 
 his parents that their child was in danger ; that 
 their chief concern ought to be not to prepare 
 him for the Throne, but to save his life if salva- 
 tion were possible. 
 
 Prince George was indignant that a son of 
 his should be afraid of anything. One of his race 
 
 355
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 had never known fear. The boy should be made 
 to overcome himself. Poor little Gloucester ! 
 
 Behold him in the torture-chamber with the 
 huge blustering Dane, and his mother, pale with 
 grief and apprehension, but determined in her 
 folly ! The little Prince is ordered to march 
 around the room alone. 
 
 " Oh, mamma, for a hand, just one hand . . . 
 a finger just to touch mine, mamma ! " was the 
 petition so touchingly expressed by the girlish, 
 trembling lips. 
 
 The Princess said she was sure he could walk 
 if he would but try. 
 
 The child was silent. He thought it over. 
 He was so anxious to be a real prince ; to be 
 afraid of nothing, like his father ; to be ready to 
 fight all the world, like his uncle the King. And, 
 stiffening himself, he set out on his daring 
 journey. 
 
 Oh ! but for mamma's gentle hand ... a 
 finger even ! The room was swimming round, 
 ceiling and floor were meeting to crush him. 
 
 He stood stock-still, trembling with fear. 
 
 " Walk 1 " growled the Prince. 
 
 But he could not move. He could not speak. 
 He was tongue-tied with agony at this terrible 
 ordeal. And there was mamma's beautiful white 
 hand. With it touching him, ever so lightly, he 
 could walk anywhere, even up or downstairs. 
 
 356
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Ah ! what was that in the hand she withheld 
 from him, something half-hidden in the folds of 
 her dress ? It was a birch. A birch for him, the 
 boy who would one day be King of Britain ! He 
 did not know what they were saying now. His 
 poor brain was in a whirl. 
 
 The Princess handed the rod to the Prince, 
 and the giant laid it mercilessly across the little 
 boy's shoulders. For a moment he was dazed. 
 He seemed about to fall. But the gallant little 
 spirit sustained him. He would be a king some 
 day. He would be worthy of his brave papa, 
 of his gallant uncle, the King. He had to suffer 
 now to learn the Royal trade. 
 
 And Anne, one prays, turned away her face, 
 and pressed her fingers upon her ears to shut 
 out the barbarous spectacle. Swish ! Swish ! 
 Swish 1 ... The victory was gained. George 
 of Denmark had won. . . . His little boy 
 staggered across the floor, and never again 
 would ask for a helping hand. 
 
 But dearly was the victory purchased. 
 Gloucester had won his first battle, and inflicted 
 on his mother her life's bitterest defeat. In 
 making a man of him with the rod they were 
 killing him. 
 
 The hardening process by which a delicate 
 child was to be transformed into a seasoned 
 veteran was not without its comedy. The boy, 
 
 357
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 during one of his frequent illnesses, received a 
 present from Mrs. Buss, a member of his 
 mother's household, which was deemed a gross 
 outrage upon his dignity. It was a martial toy, 
 representing Louis of Baden fighting the Turks. 
 In the guard-room at Campden House the 
 soldiery roared with laughter. Toys for their 
 chief ! They who fought like Mohawks amongst 
 themselves and, 'sdeath, drew blood ! They who 
 entered the houses of gentle and simple between 
 Kensington and London and took what they 
 pleased, just as though they were let loose to 
 live in an enemy's country ! 
 
 Gloucester himself, colonel of the dare-devils, 
 fumed at the slight put upon his honour. He 
 ordered his fellows to arrest the messenger. 
 The messenger had, however, fled, having got 
 wind of the commotion. After him, beauties, 
 or the Prince will himself out of bed and pursue 
 the varlet to the ample skirts of the misguided 
 Buss ! If he resists, run him through ! Spit 
 him ! And if Gloucester's Own once scent 
 blood, Buss herself would do well to pray for 
 that mercy in eternity which she need no more 
 look for on earth. 
 
 The unfortunate messenger was caught, bound 
 hand and foot, and water was thrown upon him 
 until he was half drowned. Then, in plight as 
 miserable as ever befell one who had set out to 
 
 358
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 do a kindly errand, he was taken before the sick 
 Prince, who was pleased to approve of all that 
 had been done. Honour was satisfied. Let 
 Buss remember for the future her manners. 
 
 If she wanted satisfaction for what had 
 happened, she knew where he might be found. 
 The Duke of Gloucester was always at Campden 
 House, and ready to draw upon any gentleman 
 who might care to take up the quarrel. 
 
 All of which was very gratifying to George as 
 evidence of the growth of a right martial spirit. 
 The martial spirit was also manifested in a 
 kindred fashion which induced the Princess, 
 however, to fear that her son needed the curb 
 rather than the spur. His Royal Highness 
 found a little very mild swearing helpful in the 
 management of his affairs. It put heart into 
 the regiment when, worn out with war's alarms, 
 sport flagged. It added many inches to his 
 height when he visited the stables. Even his 
 Shetland pony seemed to swell beneath him to 
 the swift and splendid proportions of an Arab 
 stallion as he led the cavalcade with a ringing 
 expletive. 
 
 The Princess's reproofs may not have cured 
 His Highness of a habit which, in his own 
 judgment, so enormously enhanced his dignity ; 
 but they taught him discretion in his mother's 
 presence, lest the retainers, who excelled in 
 
 359
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 language unfit for polite ears, might be dismissed 
 for their services to his vocabulary. 
 
 The softer feelings which moved the King to 
 civility towards Anne in the early days of his 
 bereavement could not long sway such a nature 
 as his. His temperament, his drinking habits, 
 his cares, his feeble health, the brutalising in- 
 fluence of incessant war, always disappointing 
 in its results, all forbade the hope that mellowing 
 time and trial would ever alter William. 
 
 When the King was absent from England, as 
 was the case for long periods, Anne enjoyed no 
 political authority, but at such times she was the 
 first personage in the realm. To the Princess 
 this dignity was very sweet, nor was William's 
 bearing on his return always of a nature to 
 reconcile her to the change. When she attended 
 his receptions during the winter of 1695 she 
 was treated as the wife of an ordinary citizen. 
 
 An atonement, however, which more than 
 compensated Anne for these slights was soon 
 made by the King. His Majesty selected 
 Gloucester for a vacant Garter. They dare not 
 make him Prince of Wales. But a Garter was 
 almost as good. No boy of six, save one born 
 to be a king, could wear so proud a decoration. 
 
 At the installation ceremony he was worthy of 
 his new manhood. He had learned the lesson 
 of the birch. He was afraid of nothing. As the 
 
 360
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Marquis of Normanby the Earl of Mulgrave 
 of her father's Court said to Anne, he con- 
 ducted himself as if thirty years had been added 
 to his age. He was not even elated when the 
 King buckled on the Garter with his own hands. 
 He wore his Star as though he had Orders from 
 all the Courts of the Continent in his dressing- 
 case or somewhere. 
 
 Nor was this honour conferred on her son the 
 only pleasure that William afforded Anne. She 
 was given the use of St. James's Palace and of 
 Windsor Castle, and Gloucester had all the 
 cannon and soldiers that his warlike little heart 
 could desire. Into a statesman and diplomatist 
 he grew, as well as into a soldier. He was only 
 seven when he made a speech to his parents on 
 their birthday, wishing them " unity, peace, and 
 concord," blessings which he naively prayed 
 might remain with them, " not for a time, but 
 for ever." When his devoted servant, Lewis 
 Jenkins, praised him for turning so neat a 
 compliment, the Prince administered a crushing 
 rebuke : 
 
 " It was no compliment, Lewis ; it was 
 sincere." 
 
 The time was now at hand when William was 
 to place on record an admirable example of the 
 code of honour to which he subscribed. In 
 September 1697 His Majesty and the King of 
 
 361
 
 France entered into the peace of Ryswick. 
 Louis recognised the Prince of Orange as King 
 of England. But, as some compensation to the 
 exiles at St. Germains, a secret article provided 
 that the succession should be secured by William 
 to the Prince of Wales, on the condition that 
 James made no further attempt to regain the 
 Throne by force of arms. There was also an 
 understanding that Mary Beatrice should be 
 paid her dower of fifty thousand a year, as stipu- 
 lated in her marriage treaty, just as though her 
 husband were really dead. 
 
 When the squadrons of France rode the tide, 
 watching for a clear course to the English shore, 
 and French troops mustered on the coast ready 
 for the invasion of the island, King James and 
 his Queen could only look forward to returning 
 to their kingdom over her humbled flag, her 
 routed forces. But now the hero of the Revolu- 
 tion was on their side. He who had driven 
 them forth was pledged to make restitution 
 to their son. It was no longer an affair of 
 arms. Justice was to have a tardy triumph 
 through diplomacy. 
 
 With spies passing constantly between the two 
 countries, Anne must have received some vague 
 hint that the peace of Ryswick had raised the 
 drooping spirits of the band of exiles surrounding 
 the Royal Family at St. Germains. But William 
 
 362
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 had in contemplation a scheme still more daring, 
 a scheme which, after the lapse of centuries, fills 
 one with amazement by reason of its reckless 
 contempt for the likes or dislikes of the English. 
 He offered to adopt the Prince of Wales. 
 
 The terms of William's offer, like so many 
 other vital matters in these long decades of deceit 
 and treachery, are somewhat uncertain. His 
 original idea was doubtless to educate the Prince 
 as a Protestant. But not for a thousand king- 
 doms would the Prince's parents hear of such a 
 bargain. It is asserted, however, that William 
 did not insist upon Protestantism, no small con- 
 cession under any circumstances, but extraordinary 
 in its generosity when made for the benefit of the 
 babe who was supposed to have been smuggled 
 into St. James's Palace in a warming pan ! 
 
 England might have been made to ring with 
 this proposal. But St. Germains was blind to 
 the splendour of the opportunity created by its 
 deadliest enemy for undoing all that he had done. 
 Mary Beatrice was too loving a wife to be a good 
 diplomatist. She thought only of her husband's 
 wrongs, and, wedded to truth and justice, could 
 not but believe in their ultimate triumph. 
 
 " I would rather," said Mary, when the project 
 was communicated to her, " see my son dead at 
 my feet than consent to his being a party to his 
 father's injuries." 
 
 363
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 King James dare not fly in the face of such 
 devotion. Perhaps he had not the strength of 
 purpose necessary to do so. The woman who 
 spoke thus had given him the truest love a wife 
 could give, had travelled uncomplainingly with 
 him the roughest road a young and delicately 
 bred woman could travel. Years younger than 
 her lord, she still placed him high above her 
 children, great as was the affection with which 
 she cherished them. She was not merely a 
 Jacobite : she was a Queen enamoured of the 
 King, and the man to her was greater than the 
 cause. Yet who can unravel the motives of 
 the purest heart ? Mary Beatrice, in standing 
 forth as the champion of her husband's rights, 
 may not have been unmoved by fears for the 
 life of the Prince of Wales, should he find him- 
 self alone in William's hands. Such fears might 
 readily be pardoned a mother, for William's 
 reputation for humanity did not rank high. But 
 the Prince of Wales would have been as safe in 
 London as in Paris. In Parliament, the Army, 
 the Navy, his friends were numerous ; in the 
 Court itself they were influential. To receive 
 the boy at all would have been to confess that 
 grievous wrong had been done his father and 
 mother in aspersing his birth. To injure him 
 would have been a crime almost certain to invite 
 swift vengeance. But the best guarantee of the 
 
 364
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 Prince's safety would have been found in the fact 
 that William's first concern was his Throne, and 
 that he cared little who should succeed him. 
 
 Mary Beatrice, in maintaining her husband's 
 rights at the expense of her son's prospects, was 
 unconsciously Anne's best ally. In a little while 
 she had cause to repent her haste. Her dower, 
 upon which she and the King had counted to 
 relieve them from many embarrassments and 
 aid the cause, remained unpaid. Parliament 
 voted the money. But a farthing of it never 
 escaped from His Majesty's custody to the un- 
 fortunate lady to whom it was due. It was a 
 time when gold was the talisman which turned 
 foes into friends ; before it the most formidable 
 gates swung open, and frowning ramparts 
 crumbled to dust. Fifty thousand a year from 
 the British Treasury was a source of strength 
 which William would not willingly see pass into 
 the hands of his enemies, in deference to any 
 inconvenient law of justice. He was a law unto 
 himself, and retained the money. 
 
 Anne likewise was an interested spectator of 
 William's financial policy in regard to other 
 people's money. Parliament voted another fifty 
 thousand pounds a year for an establishment for 
 the young Duke of Gloucester, the time having 
 come for taking his education out of the hands 
 of ladies, and entrusting it to preceptors whose 
 
 365
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 united wisdom might mould the weakling to 
 the right Royal type. The King was allowed 
 the fullest discretion as to the disbursement of 
 the money, and he exercised it to such purpose 
 that he saved about thirty-five thousand a year 
 from the bounty of the country. 
 
 Marlborough, much to Anne's satisfaction, 
 was appointed chief of Gloucester's new house- 
 hold. He was also included in the array of 
 Lords Justices who governed the kingdom in the 
 absence of the King. There is a story to the 
 effect that when Marlborough attended Court 
 to kiss hands on his promotion, His Majesty said : 
 " Make the Duke of Gloucester like yourself, 
 and I desire no more." 
 
 The King was perhaps indulging his taste for 
 sarcasm at the expense of the silken Earl. He 
 well knew that if Gloucester's new governor had 
 been judged by the standard applied only recently 
 to gentlemen of less importance, politics would 
 have done with him for ever. 
 
 Scarcely had the dignity of a household of his 
 own been conferred upon Gloucester when hope 
 and disappointment again came to Anne. Again 
 she was a mother, and once again the promise 
 of new joy was turned to mourning. While 
 Gloucester played with his juvenile guardsmen 
 the new-born babe was taken away, and another 
 was added to the array of tiny coffins where
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 slept the family of the Princess Anne. Gloucester 
 alone remained, and his mother was more than 
 ever the Bride of Death. 
 
 The preceptors of the hapless Gloucester 
 spared neither themselves nor the boy in their 
 zeal to make him, as they conceived it, worthy 
 of the august destiny to which he was born. 
 By orders of the Ministry, he was examined 
 frequently, that Parliament might be assured it 
 was receiving ample return for its money. His 
 mother's friend, the Marquis of Normanby, on 
 one occasion performed this duty, and seems to 
 have reported that the boy was a prodigy of 
 learning. 
 
 The accomplished cynic might have been 
 better pleased had the Royal student betrayed 
 more of boyish ignorance. The little fellow 
 seems to have been a miniature James I., 
 crammed full of abstract knowledge, with every 
 prospect of growing into such a pedant as his 
 great-grandfather. But times had changed 
 sadly since the days of the second Charles. 
 And if Normanby had not changed, that was 
 sufficient reason why he should take the Prince 
 and his culture as he found them, and, making 
 the best of both, save himself the trouble of a 
 quarrel with His Highness's preceptors. 
 
 Windsor was the boy's home from the time 
 that he was given an establishment of his own, 
 
 367
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 and his parents spent their days between the 
 Castle and St. James's, watching with pride and 
 joy their boy's eager advance in all that became 
 a Scion of the Blood. 
 
 The sun shone brightly on the Castle and 
 lawns and woodlands for the eleventh birthday 
 of the Princeling, who one day would be master 
 of the hoary stronghold. His father and mother 
 were there watching their son ride bravely along 
 the line of his regiment of young dare-devils, 
 sons of the noblest families in the land, and 
 every one of them proud of this chief, only just 
 eleven years old, who was able to fight and 
 swear like an old war-dog of Flanders ; and with 
 his sword unbuckled argue with a bishop. The 
 cannon boomed, the regiment cheered, the 
 guards saluted ; the Duke returned the compli- 
 ment, tingling with pride, and dying to prove 
 his mettle on a sterner field. 
 
 Anne's eyes were dim with joy. That palfrey 
 pirouetting beneath its feather-weight rider 
 carried her heaven ! She wished it would stop 
 its capering, and behave with less spirit and 
 more sobriety. But Gloucester's nimble heel, 
 daintily spurred, compelled a readier response 
 than a mother's prayer. 
 
 The review was followed by a banquet. 
 Gloucester had to do the honours, and if he was 
 tired, and longed for rest, nobody knew. He
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 was a soldier, and his place was at the board to 
 cheer the company come to do him honour. 
 But glad was he when the day of rejoicing 
 melted into twilight, and then into darkness. 
 The fireworks shot gaily into the sky. His 
 eyelids were heavy, but he watched them all, 
 praised the master of the revels, jested with his 
 companions, and to his anxious mother played 
 the cavalier. But when William of Gloucester's 
 head touched the pillow, weary though he was, 
 sleep eluded him, and he wondered, perhaps, 
 with great perplexity, if a prince's trade were 
 worth the learning, and if those who taught it 
 were always masters of the craft. 
 
 All through the years of his childhood Anne's 
 last thoughts at night, her first on waking, were 
 of her boy. As birthday after birthday came 
 and went, and she might at last cast her thoughts 
 forward but a few years to see him really grown 
 to youth, she began to banish doubt, and her 
 prayers that he might be spared to her were 
 turned to prayers of gratitude that he had been 
 spared. A few summers more and he would be 
 a man. 
 
 While Gloucester lay awake pondering on the 
 strange ways of a world where a prince must be 
 birched into walking, though the effort kills him, 
 and his head must be crammed with the dry-as- 
 dust lore of word-spinning pedants, where he 
 
 VOL. I 369 B B
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 must swear to please the soldiers, and pull a long 
 face to please the prelates, neither did his mother 
 sleep if she shared the mysterious, the weird gift, 
 which is roused to activity only when danger 
 overshadows a loved one. 
 
 The next day the boy was ill. 
 
 Message of dread import ! Anne flew to his 
 bedside. For years she had feared that summons. 
 A hurried foot in the gallery was wont to set her 
 heart leaping to her mouth lest it should be the 
 dreaded call. Often had she listened in the hours 
 of darkness for panic-stricken cries from the Duke's 
 apartments ; and if they did not come as she 
 listened, a warning voice whispered that come 
 the alarm would when she was most unready. 
 Now it had come amidst the glories of Windsor. 
 
 Consternation was imprinted on every counten- 
 ance. Was this the end ? Was it for this the 
 cannon had roared but yesterday, that the bells 
 had rung, and the soldiers cheered their Prince ? 
 
 The Windsor doctor arrived, and resorted to 
 the cure for every ill. He bled the boy. Mean- 
 while Dr. Radcliffe was summoned from London. 
 He was the first of his profession, and a high 
 Tory, with little love for princes or princesses 
 who owed their dignities to the Revolution. 
 Radcliffe had recently offended Anne by declining 
 to hasten to St. James's Palace when she imagined 
 she needed his presence. " Tell Her Highness," 
 
 370
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 said Radcliffe, " nothing ails her but the vapours." 
 For this bluntness he lost his appointment as one 
 of the Royal physicians, a punishment which 
 RadclifFe's Toryism enabled him to endure with 
 resignation. The call to Gloucester's side he 
 could not, however, disobey. Humanity forbade 
 it. Finding on his arrival, however, that the 
 boy had already been bled, he declared that 
 they had destroyed the Prince. 
 
 " You may finish him," he declared ; " I will 
 not prescribe." 
 
 Never did knowledge and skill utter words 
 more cruel. On the great man's verdict the 
 Princess hung as though he held in the hollow 
 of his hand the life of her child, and that it was 
 his to give or to withhold. If only he would 
 take his place by the bedside and join in the 
 battle for a priceless life ! What matter that in 
 the first assault of the enemy the citadel had been 
 shaken 1 The last trenches remained for the grim 
 defence of unyielding despair. But Radcliffe 
 was hard as flint. He would do nothing, could 
 do nothing. And he turned his back upon the 
 Castle, now silent and grey and desolate, though 
 the sun shone as brightly as when, a few hours 
 before, the steel clashed above the ranks of 
 Gloucester's Own, and banners fluttered bravely 
 from every battlement. 
 
 Why did not Anne fall on her knees before 
 371
 
 him and overcome him with her tears ? Why 
 did not the courtiers seize him by main force and 
 impress him into the service of their dying 
 master? But as though the tragedy were in- 
 evitable, they let him go, and Anne, convinced 
 perhaps that the curse which haunted her house 
 had at last found out her darling, and that 
 escape from it was impossible, acquiesced. 
 
 Numbed with fear, the Princess watched by the 
 bedside of the dying boy. Despair had seized 
 her. She was beaten to the dust. Child had 
 followed child to the tomb. Gloucester, too, 
 would be there to receive the dust of his mother. 
 She dared not pray for him. The strength to 
 pray was not left her. The courtiers and ladies 
 wondered at her calm, when they looked for a 
 frenzy of grief and torrent of lamentation. But 
 they did not understand. How could she grieve, 
 how could she pray ? To beg that this young 
 life might be spared would be to ask Heaven 
 to abet her plans for robbing her brother of his 
 inheritance. She had heard of the vows of 
 mediaeval days when, in return for some favour, 
 the suppliant promised a sacrifice to Heaven. 
 Would she now give up her hopes of the Crown 
 of England for herself and for this boy, if only 
 he were spared to her ? But even here, while 
 death toyed with her son, she would not relent. 
 She was subdued but unconquered. 
 
 372
 
 From a mrzzutliit iiiiraviiiK by .1. Smith, aftfr a imintliiK by Sir Coilfrey Kiu-llcr. 
 WILLIAM, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, K.G 
 
 p. 372.
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HER COURT 
 
 For some days he lingered. Marlborough 
 was summoned, but an enemy was in possession 
 whom the great general could not dislodge, and 
 he arrived only to behold the child-soldier's wild 
 battle for life and his weary surrender. . . . 
 Gloucester's breath came thick and short. His 
 little bosom heaved with violent gasps. The 
 sweet eyes that were his mother's heaven be- 
 came dull and glazed, as the eyes of the soul 
 turned towards another world. The cold sweat 
 stood in beads upon the white brow his mother 
 loved to kiss. A cry arose from the woman's 
 bursting heart. He was slipping past her. Be- 
 tween him and her some strange, cold, unseen 
 presence intervened . . . Idolised child, come 
 back ! Come back ! The tomb is full of your 
 kindred, while your mother is desolate ! Perish 
 the Crown 1 Perish the Kingdom I Perish 
 honours, wealth, rank, favourites, pleasure, pride I 
 Dear God above, but leave the woman her child ! 
 
 But God was deaf. The white brow turned to 
 marble. The eyes grew fixed. The gentle lips 
 would speak no more precious tags of wisdom to 
 make his mother smile. Anne might some day 
 be Queen of England, but never a child of hers 
 would bear the gallant name of Prince of Wales. 
 
 373
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
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 LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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 APR 2 1955 
 
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